Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner - July 2016
7.30 Person type. Last year we set out a number of compelling reasons why it is not
possible for public authorities to report the number of individuals to whom the 761,702
items of data relate to.45 We made the point that the number of individuals would be
much smaller as public authorities make multiple requests for communications data in
the course of a single investigation, and also make multiple requests for communications
data relating to the same individual. The new statistics require public authorities to record,
for each item of data, whether that item relates to a victim, a witness, a complainant, or
a suspect, next of kin, vulnerable person or other person relevant to the investigation
or operation. Figure 10 shows that 70% of requests related to suspects or persons of
interest for national security purposes. Approximately 10% of the requests related to
victims, complainants or witnesses. For reasons explained in Annex B, it is believed that
the proportion of data relating to vulnerable persons is under-represented.
Figure 10 Items of data by person type
associate 9.1%
a person of interest
for national security 6.4%
suspect
63.6%
other relevant person 6.2%
victim (inc. complainant) 9.0%
vulnerable person 3.9%
witness 1.6%
next of kin 0.2%
7.31 Age of items of data requested. In terms of the age of the data at the point
at which is was acquired, Figure 11 shows the average trend (in days). This shows that
public authorities have a significant demand for current data (i.e. data that is less than
one day old), with demand for data falling gradually as its age increases (from a few
days old to one year old or over). Approximately 88% of the data requested was for less
than four months old at the point of acquisition, 8% was for between four months and
one year old, and 5% was for data over 12 months old. This pattern is not necessarily a
reflection on the use of older data to an individual investigation. Under DRIPA 2014 the
secretary of state can serve a data retention notice on a CSP to retain data for up to 12
45 See Paragraphs 7.29 to 7.31 of our March 2015 report http://iocco-uk.info/docs/IOCCO%20Report%20
March%202015%20(Web).pdf
www.iocco-uk.info
51