2012 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
Case Study 7 – North Yorkshire Council use of Communications
Data – Operation Zinnia
Communications data was used effectively in relation to this car clocking investigation.
The vehicles were purchased by the offenders (4 brothers) at local car auctions and the
mileages were reduced dramatically. In one case a car had its mileage reduced by over
200,000 miles.The offenders sold the cars from their home addresses using multiple trading
names. Unsuspecting consumers purchased the cars after seeing them advertised on the
Autotrader website. In some instances, false service histories were also supplied with
the cars. Two of the offenders denied being involved in some of the sales and subscriber
checks were used to show that the phone numbers in particular car adverts were linked
to those individuals. Subscriber checks were also used to identify the users of various
email addresses connected to the placing of adverts. One of the brothers was also charged
with perverting the course of justice, together with a fifth male (who had come forward
to trading standards and falsely claimed he was responsible for the sales). The perverting
the course of justice offences were proved by a text message recovered from a seized
phone (and subsequent subscriber check which showed who sent / received the message).
The four brothers were prosecuted for conspiracy to commit fraud. One of the brothers
was also prosecuted for money laundering, and he and the fifth male were prosecuted for
perverting the course of justice. All five individuals pleaded guilty and were sentenced at
Leeds Crown Court on 14th November 2011.The principal defendant received 18 months
imprisonment. His three brothers were sentenced to 12 month imprisonments, suspended
for 3 years, and were ordered to carry out 200 hours unpaid community work. The fifth
male was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment, suspended for 2 years, and was ordered
to carry out 100 hours unpaid community work. A proceeds of crime act confiscation
hearing is underway to confiscate assets held by the defendants as a result of their criminal
conduct. Any monies recovered will be used to compensate the victims in the case.
7.5.4 Other Public Authorities
There is a number of Other public authorities that are registered for the purpose of acquiring
communications data.These include the Serious Fraud Office, the Independent Police Complaints
Commission, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and the Office of Fair Trading, to name just a
few.The full list of public authorities registered can be found in the RIPA (Communications Data)
Order 2010 (No. 480). These public authorities are restricted both in relation to the statutory
purposes for which they can acquire data and the types of communications data they can acquire.
Only a few of these public authorities are permitted to acquire traffic data under Section 21(4)
(a), with the majority only authorised to acquire subscriber and service use data under Sections
21(4)(c) and (b) respectively.
By comparison with police forces and LEAs, these Other public authorities make very limited
use of their powers to acquire communications data. During the period covered by this report
25 of these public authorities notified me that they had made use of their powers to acquire
communications data and between them they made a total of 2379 requests, a decrease of 31%
on the previous year. To put this figure in context, it represents just 0.4% of all communications
data requests submitted by public authorities.
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