2012 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
9.3 Oral and Written Evidence to the Communications Data Bill
Joint Select Committee
I provided written evidence to the Joint Committee appointed to conduct the pre-legislative
scrutiny of the draft Communications Data Bill and I also provided the Committee with copies
of my 2011 Annual Report. My written evidence can be accessed at the following link http://
www.parliament.uk/draft-communications-bill/ I was invited to give oral evidence, with my Chief
Inspector, to the Joint Committee on 16th October 2012.This oral evidence session can be watched
via the following link http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/MeetingDetails.aspx?meetingId=11518.
I do not intend to outline my written and oral evidence in full here, but I will comment on
the key areas of the bill that impact on my role and respond to some of the Committee’s
recommendations. Broadly I am satisfied that the legislation is required in order to ensure that
public authorities have a continuing capability to obtain communications data in the future.
I am pleased that the draft bill does not change the current application or authorisation process
for the acquisition of communications data. Requests will only be made by the public authorities
approved by Parliament to acquire data and the requests will be vetted by a SPoC and approved
by a designated senior officer who must believe the tests of necessity and proportionality have
been met. I have long been a proponent for the SPoC process and believe it is a robust safeguard.
The new powers will also provide for filtering arrangements, which will minimise the amount
of communications data that is disclosed to a public authority when more complicated data
requests are made, thus minimising the intrusion into privacy.The Interception of Communications
Commissioner will have the responsibility to oversee the filter and I was assured by senior Home
Office staff that my successor would be provided with the necessary resources to carry out this
new function and would be consulted in relation to the design, testing and implementation of any
filter. This is crucial to ensure effective oversight of the filter.
In addition the draft bill will close the loophole through which local authorities and some other
public authorities are able to use other powers (such as the Social Security and Fraud Act 2001)
to acquire communications data. I welcome this and have expressed concerns in the past that
two regimes exist for acquiring communications data in some public authorities. The current
RIPA process (to be replaced by the CD bill) is a robust system. The process is subject to
oversight and the means of redress for complaints is through the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
Other pieces of legislation that are currently used to acquire communications data do not have
any such oversight and the authorisation levels are typically set to a lower level. The draft bill
proposes to remove these other statutory powers with weaker safeguards.
I strongly believe that the powers should not be limited to just police forces and intelligence
agencies. Parliament has delegated statutory enforcement functions to a number of other public
authorities and as a result they have a clear statutory duty to investigate a number of criminal
offences, some of which are their sole responsibility. Often the criminal offences that these public
authorities investigate are regarded as very important at a local level and provide the public with
reassurance and protection. I have given a number of examples of such investigations in this
report.The volume of requests is low, but this does not mean that such public authorities should
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