Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner - July 2016
6.40 Some 80 of the 3059 warrants (approximately 2.5%) were approved urgently
by the secretary of state under the hand of a senior official. These warrants all related
to exceptionally urgent cases where, for example, there was an imminent and credible
threat to life or limb within the next 24 hours; an imminent and credible threat to national
security or a unique opportunity to obtain intelligence or to prevent loss of intelligence
of vital importance to national security; an imminent importation or handover within
the next 24 hours of a substantial quantity of drugs; or a unique opportunity to obtain
intelligence of vital importance in relation to preventing or detecting serious crime. The
majority of those urgently approved were issued on behalf of the Security Service or the
NCA.
Figure 3 Warrants issued by statutory purpose in 2015
serious
crime
65%
national
security
34%
combination 1%
6.41 We previously commented that the rejection figure for interception warrants is
inevitably low due to the high level of scrutiny that is applied to each warrant application
as it crosses a number of desks in the interception agency and the relevant warrant issuing
department before it reaches the secretary of state. This year we asked the interception
agencies and warrant issuing departments to capture statistical information relating to
the number of warrants that were subject to challenge or further information requests by
the senior official or secretary of state prior to their being approved, or that were rejected
by the secretary of state. They reported to us that on 64 occasions a senior official or
secretary of state called for further information prior to approving a warrant. On six
occasions a secretary of state refused an interception warrant. It is important to note that
these figures cover a mixture of new warrant applications, modifications and renewals
and so the figure should not be taken as a percentage of the 3059 warrants issued in
2015. It is also important to note that this figure does not capture the guardian and
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