Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner - July 2016
7.26 Public authority usage. Police forces and law enforcement agencies were
responsible for acquiring 93.7% of the items of data, with 5.7% acquired by intelligence
agencies, 0.1% by local authorities and the remainder by other public authorities (0.5%)
such as regulatory bodies with statutory functions to investigate criminal offences (Figure
8).
7.27 Urgent requests. Communications data can be acquired in exceptionally urgent
circumstances by virtue of an oral application and approval, for example, where there is
an immediate threat to life or an urgent operational requirement and there is no time to
complete the normal written process (Paragraphs 3.65 to 3.71 of the Code of Practice).
Some 11% of the requests in 2015 were orally approved.
Figure 8 Items of data by public authority type
police & law
enforcement
agencies
93.7%
intelligence agencies 5.7%
other public authorities 0.5%
local authorities 0.1%
7.28 Necessity purpose. 85.8% of the items of data were acquired for the purpose
of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder (section 22(2)(b) of RIPA). 8%
was acquired for the purpose of preventing death or injury or any damage to a person’s
physical or mental health, or of mitigating any injury or damage to a person’s physical
or mental health (section 22(2)(g) of RIPA) and 6% in the interests of national security
(Figure 9).
7.29 Crime type. Figure 9 also shows a breakdown by crime type of the items of data
acquired for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder
(section 22(2)(b) of RIPA). 53% of the data was acquired in relation to four crime types:
drugs offences, sexual offences, theft offences and fraud and deception offences.
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