2012 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
First, failings were found in relation to the offence related and / or intelligence-led telephone
monitoring procedures in approximately a quarter of the establishments. Last year over half
of the prisons inspected were found to have failings in this area, and although I am pleased to
report a significant improvement this year, the number of prisons still failing in this area is too
high. It is evident that a number of the establishments have worked hard to ensure they have the
necessary equipment and resources to conduct the interception properly. Therefore the failures
in this area are generally now only seen in prisons where very large numbers of prisoners require
monitoring. Failure to monitor properly the communications of prisoners who pose a risk to
children, the public or the good order, security and discipline of the prison could place managers
and staff in an indefensible position if a serious incident was to occur which could have been
prevented through the gathering of intercept intelligence. Fortunately my inspectors have not
found any evidence of harm to children or members of the public who need to be protected
from these prisoners but nevertheless the risk is there.
“This is a significant improvement in compliance and is evidence that
the establishments have worked hard to ensure they have the necessary
equipment and resources to conduct the interception properly”
Second, my inspectors also found serious failings in relation to the record keeping requirements.
Specifically, in some of the establishments there was no evidence that interception had been
conducted as monitoring logs had not been completed by the monitoring staff. The majority of
these red recommendations related to ad hoc monitoring. In these cases it was recommended
that monitoring logs were introduced to ensure that there was a full audit trail of the interception
activity. Furthermore in a number of the establishments, amber recommendations were made as
although monitoring logs were being completed, there was room to improve their standard of
completion. It is important for monitoring logs to be completed to a good standard as these will
assist with the review process and provide the Authorising Officer with the information required
to decide whether to continue or cease monitoring.
Third, 16% of the prisons were found to be retaining intercept product (generally telephone
backup DVDs) for longer than the permitted three month period. This represents a breach of
Prison Rule 35D(1). Although this is an improvement on last year (25% failing in this area), it
is an area where there is really no excuse for non compliance. These prisons were instructed
to destroy any product that was older than the permitted three month period and monitor
the system more closely in future to prevent any recurrence. One of the prisons that was
recently inspected has received the upgrade to the telephone system which eradicates this
issue completely as intercept product is automatically destroyed once it reaches three months.
Hopefully the rollout of this version will happen in all establishments in 2013.
In a very small number of the prisons inspected, serious failings were identified in relation to
the authorisations for monitoring. In two prisons, the authorisations had not been signed by an
Authorising Officer of the required grade / level. In addition four of the establishments had failed
to take on board the reduced authorisation periods which came into force when the revised NSF
was published in February 2009. Offence related monitoring must be reviewed at least every 3
months, and reviews for intelligence-led monitoring must be undertaken within 1 month. As a
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