Communications Data
House of Lords
Written answers and statements, 4 November 2009
Lord Bates (- Shadow Minister (Also Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office and Communities and Local Government), Shadow Minister; Conservative)
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many authorisations were made for (a) directed surveillance, (b) covert human intelligence sources, and (c) communications traffic data under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 by (1) local authorities, and (2) public authorities which are not law enforcement agencies, in each year since 2000 according to records held by (i) the Home Office, (ii) the Office of the Surveillance Commissioners, and (iii) the Interception of Communications Commissioner.
Lord West of Spithead (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Security and Counter-terrorism), Home Office; Labour)
The available figures are published in the annual reports of the Interception of Communications Commissioner and the Chief Surveillance Commissioner (see table attached) copies of which are in the House Library.
Figures for communications data acquisition were published for the first time in the Interception Commissioner's report for 2005.
No further breakdown is given by the commissioners. The Home Office does not separately record this information.
| Covert Investigatory Techniques Authorised Under RIPA | |||||||||
| Directed surveillance | |||||||||
| 2000/01 | 2001/02 | 2002/03 | 2003/04 | 2004/05 | 2005/06 | 2006/07 | 2007/08 | 2008/09 | |
| By law enforcement | not given | 27,800 | 26,400 | 26,986 | 25,518 | 23,628 | 19,651 | 18,767 | 16,118 |
| By other authorities | not given | not given | not given | 6,398 | 6,110 | 6,924 | 12,494 | 9,535 | 9,894 |
| Covert Human Intelligence Sources | |||||||||
| 2000/01 | 2001/02 | 2002/03 | 2003/04 | 2004/05 | 2005/06 | 2006/07 | 2007/08 | 2008/09 | |
| Bylaw enforcement | Not given | 5,400 | 5,900 | 5,907 | 4,980 | 4,559 | 4,373 | 4,498 | 4,278 |
| By other authorities | Not given | not given | not given | 273 | 308 | 437 | 429 | 204 | 234 |
| Acquisition of Communications Data | |||||||||
| 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 1/1/05- 31/3/06 | 11/4/06-31/12/06 | 2007 | 2008 | |
| By all public authorities | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | not given | 439,054 | 253,557 | 519,260 | 504,073 |
| By local authorities | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | not given | not given | 1,694 | 1,707 | 1,553 |