Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner - July 2016
5.6
On 3 November 2015 we published our “wish list”20 of the six elements we would
like to see in the IP Bill to strengthen the current oversight of surveillance powers:
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A single independent public facing oversight body. We support fully a
single unified body with responsibility for surveillance oversight. This will
be an opportunity to streamline the oversight landscape, to put all of the
oversight responsibilities on a statutory footing, to bridge some of the
identified gaps and remove overlaps. The body must be independent, have
an appropriate legal mandate and be public facing to promote greater public
trust and confidence.
Full access to technical systems. RIPA contains outdated language (a
requirement to provide to the Commissioner with “all such documents and
information”) and is in need of updating. The query based examinations we
have developed enable us at scale to identify trends, patterns and compliance
issues across large volumes of applications. We need to develop our technical
audits on the interception side of the business, particularly where the collection
of material and data is at scale and in order to do so we need explicit provision
to access systems.
Provision to launch investigations and sufficient resource to conduct
thematic inquires. The oversight body should have a clear mandate to launch
inquiries into matters of public interest or areas of concern. Detailed thematic
investigations should take place in addition to ongoing reviews. It is difficult
presently for us to produce detailed thematic reports without undermining
our core review functions - both are key to ensuring robust oversight and one
should not compromise the other.
Relaxation on secrecy provisions to aid transparency. We are constrained
by the current statutory provisions in section 19 of RIPA forbidding disclosure,
as are the public authorities and the CSPs. The culture of secrecy must continue
to be challenged and transparency should be encouraged where it leads to
greater accountability without prejudicing national security or the ongoing
prevention or detection of crime.
Full provision for reporting errors / breaches and power to refer matters
to the IPT. It is crucial to ensure that the error reporting provisions are clear
and comprehensible and that individuals adversely affected are able to seek
effective remedy. On the latter point a number of areas would benefit from
review here including; the threshold of “wilful or reckless” and whether the
Commissioner should be able to refer matters directly to the IPT.
Expert resource to complement the Commissioner. To complement
the Commissioner’s expertise a breadth of skills are required, for example,
staff with technical skills (such as computer scientists, engineers), analytical
expertise, investigative experience, privacy and public interest advocates,
media and communications expertise. A broad and in-depth range of skills
will ensure that the public authorities are robustly held to account and that all
critical views are represented.
20 http://www.iocco-uk.info/docs/Kings%20College%20Round%20Table.pdf
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