Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner - July 2016
team of two and generally last one or two days. As a point of principle we inspect each
warrant issuing department after the interception agencies for which it is responsible.
This provides an opportunity for us to discuss the findings and recommendations from
the interception agencies’ inspections with the warrant issuing departments. In addition
to the twice-yearly inspections there are a number of additional visits and a large
amount of correspondence throughout the year to follow up and review progress against
recommendations, discuss other issues or matters arising, or to conduct investigations
into errors or breaches.
6.49 Examination of warrants. IOCCO inspects the systems in place for applying for
and authorising interception warrants. This usually involves a three-stage process:
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First, to achieve a representative sample we select warrants across different
crime types and national security threats. In addition we focus on those of
particular interest or sensitivity, for example those which give rise to an unusual
degree of collateral intrusion, those which have been extant for a considerable
period (in order to assess the continued necessity for interception), those
that were approved orally, those which resulted in the interception of legal
or otherwise confidential communications and so-called ‘thematic’ warrants.
More detail on some of these areas will be provided in the recommendations
section of this report.
Secondly, we scrutinise the selected warrants and associated documentation
in detail during reading days which precede the inspections.
Thirdly, we identify those warrants, operations or areas of the process where
we require further information or clarification and arrange to interview
relevant operational, legal or technical staff. Where necessary we require and
examine further documentation or systems in relation to those matters.
6.50 Samples. The total number of warrants individually examined during the 26
interception inspections was 1148. This figure equates to three quarters of the number
of warrants in force at the end of the year and three eighths of the total new warrants
issued in 2015.
6.51 Audits and query based35 examinations. We have unfettered access to the
application and authorisation systems in place within a number of the interception
agencies and in those cases we examine the warrant documentation electronically rather
than on paper. Where the interception agency also uses that system to evaluate the
intercepted material (and related communications data) and produce intelligence reports
we are able to conduct query based examinations against the material and reports.
6.52 These examinations give insight into the use of the material, enable specific areas
to be tested for compliance, and allow trends and patterns to be identified from the
extraction of information from large volumes of applications. In a scientific sense, we
test the operational hypothesis set down in the initial application that was authorised
as we are able to examine within the operational environment the interference. These
35 Query based examinations involve searches against defined criteria or subjects.
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