8
A Democratic Licence to Operate
complex and difficult to understand, particularly as it continues to evolve. There are
a number of layers of infrastructure required in order to send information from one
computer to another over a network. The ISR Panel were interested in three layers in
particular: the device layer, network layer and physical layer. It is within these layers that
citizens, companies, police and SIAs primarily come into conflict with one another.
1.12
The device layer consists of computers, smartphones and the software applications that
they house – we can now access the Internet via laptops, tablets, smartphones and
wearable devices from a variety of different manufacturers and suppliers.
1.13
The network layer is a catch-all for protocols that allow network functionality. The
Internet is a vast network of networks – networks which operate using free and openly
available protocols, allowing anyone to create a network and connect it to all other
networks on the Internet. A system known as packet switching is used to break down
and group data into suitably sized chunks – packets – that can be sent via multiple routes
across the network. Devices called routers calculate the most efficient route to send
these data packets (packets from the same connection will not necessarily be sent via
the same route), and the data is reconstituted at the other end by the recipient device.
All information sent over the Internet uses the Internet Protocol (IP), a set of global
standard operating procedures. When a person connects their device to the Internet,
their communications service provider (CSP) normally assigns them an IP address. This IP
address works in much the same way as a postal address or telephone number, allowing
the device to communicate with other devices across the Internet. Sometimes the IP
address used in communicating is the same as that permanently assigned to a device (a
static address) and does not change. Given the enormous expansion in recent years in
the number of Internet-enabled devices and the limited number of IP addresses currently
available, however, devices are often assigned temporary, dynamic IP addresses for the
period of the communication, and which change for each session.18
1.14
CSPs such as BT, Vodafone or Virgin Media provide access to internet and telephony
services through their network infrastructure, but the same term can also be used of
application providers, such as Facebook or Twitter. There are several hundred CSPs and
internet service providers (ISPs) in the UK providing access services. BT, TalkTalk, Sky,
Vodafone, O2, Everything Everywhere, Virgin Media and Three are among the largest.19
1.15
Within much of the existing legislation governing telecommunications services in the UK,
the definition of a CSP is purposely broad to ensure that the legislation remains technology-
18. The move towards the latest version of the Internet Protocol, IPv6, sees the adoption
of 128-bit IP addresses, as opposed to the 32-bit addresses of IPv4. This allows for an
exponentially greater number of addresses to be generated, potentially reducing the need
for dynamic assignment.
19. Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC), Access to Communications Data
by the Intelligence and Security Agencies (London: The Stationery Office, 2013).