Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner - July 2016
material or confidential personal information) had been incidentally obtained. The
recommendations required renewal submissions to make reference to instances where
such material had been intercepted and to explain how the material had been handled.
In the vast majority of cases the material was immediately destroyed because it was of
no intelligence interest. However, where such material had been retained, it was brought
to our attention in accordance with the Code of Practice. Recommendations were made
for managers to carry out regular reviews of such intercepted material in order to ensure
compliance with the safeguards.
6.72 In the small number of cases where the subject of the interception was (or was
believed to be) a member of a sensitive profession (e.g. a journalist, lawyer or medical
doctor) the applications gave consideration to the potential of obtaining confidential
information or material subject to legal professional privilege. However it was not
always explicit whether the intention was to acquire this type of material or whether
consideration was being given to the likelihood of obtaining such material incidentally.
We made appropriate recommendations in this respect.
6.73 Application templates. An application for an interception warrant should contain
the details required by Paragraph 5.2 or 6.10 of the Code of Practice. The Home Office
published a national application template for communications data under Chapter 2 of
Part 1 of RIPA, but has not done the same for interception. As a result, the nine interception
agencies have developed their own application templates. The Security Service and the
law enforcement agencies (HMRC, PSNI, Police Scotland, MPS and the NCA) have more
structured templates which guide the applicants through the requirements. We have
recommended that GCHQ and SIS work with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
(FCO) to design and implement more structured application templates and warrantry
documentation. We favour national templates in order to achieve consistency in
requirements and standards across the nine interception agencies and warrant issuing
departments as do the CSPs.
Authorisation / Implementation of Warrants
6.74 12% of the recommendations related to the authorisation or implementation of
interception warrants. These included recommendations to improve the audit trail for
warrants issued orally under the authority of a secretary of state and to ensure that any
early reviews requested or restrictions placed on warrants by the secretary of state were
captured and actioned.
Procedures
6.75 15% of the recommendations were made for the interception agencies or warrant
issuing departments to make clearer their procedures or policies relating to certain
matters, for example, emergency authorisations or the handling of legal professional
privilege or other confidential material. The latter matters required revision after key
judgments in cases before the IPT (i.e. Chatwani & Others vs. the National Crime Agency
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