ICPO inquiry into bulk collection of data
01 July 2018
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ICPO inquiry
into bulk collection of data
6.8.18
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The new Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Office is carrying out an inquiry bulk collection and has had Responses to the IPC’s request for submissions on bulk powers from:
Graham
Smith: Comments to IPCO on proportionality factors relating to
bulk powers (pdf):
"The uses of bulk secondary data illustrated in the Bulk Powers Review make no claim to be limited to ascertaining whether an individual is inside or outside the British Islands. The uses go far wider than that."
Liberty’s
response to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s informal
consultation on bulk powers (pdf):
"There is no statutory definition
of ‘bulk’. The Bulk Personal Dataset Factsheet that
was released alongside the original Investigatory Powers Bill
described bulk powers as involving the availability of “information
about a wide range of people, most of whom are not of interest
to the security and intelligence agencies”.
The closest the Investigatory Powers Act (“the Act”)
comes to defining bulk is contained in Part 7, where BPDs are
defined as “a set of information that includes personal
information relating to a number of individuals where the nature
of the set is such that it is likely that the majority of the
individuals are not, and are unlikely to become, of interest
to the intelligence service.”
Submission
by Open Rights Group to the IPCO request for comments on bulk
warrants (pdf):
"Providing some constructive engagement while remaining critical is a difficult line to tread as we are concerned about contributing to the “surveillance realism” described by academics such as Lina Dencik. Surveillance realism refers to the increasing normalisation of surveillance and its deleterious effects on society, as evidenced in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which is only the tip of the iceberg. The surveillance activities of the state that IPCO tries to regulate need to be seen in this context."
See also: Report
of the Bulk Powers Review by DAVID ANDERSON Q.C. Independent
Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, August 2016 (pdf).
IPCO takes over the responsibility for oversight of investigatory
powers from the Interception of Communications Commissioner’s
Office (IOCCO), the Office of Surveillance Commissioners (OSC)
and the Intelligence Services Commissioner (ISComm) in September
2017. IPCO immediately takes over the inspection and audit functions
of these bodies and the prior approval function of Surveillance
Commissioners relating to intrusive surveillance, property interference
and undercover officers by law enforcement.
Backgound: Home Office: annual report on use of "disruptive and investigatory powers" by security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies (Statewatch News)
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