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Privacy International v Secretary of State for Foreign And Commonwealth Affairs & Ors (Rev 2) [2016] UKIPTrib 15_110-CH (17 October 2016)
4.4.3 In order to meet the 'necessity' requirement in relation to disclosure, staff in the relevant
Intelligence Service and (as the case may be) the Secretary of State must be satisfied that disclosure of
the BCD is 'really needed' for the purpose of discharging a statutory function of that Intelligence
Service.
The disclosure must also be "proportionate"
4.4.4 The disclosure of the BCD must also be proportionate to the purpose in question. In order to
meet the 'proportionality' requirement, staff in the relevant Intelligence Service and (as the case may
be) the Secretary of State must be satisfied that the level of interference with the right to privacy of
individuals whose communications data is being disclosed, both in relation to subjects of intelligence
interest and in relation to other individuals who may be of no intelligence interest, is justified by the
benefit to the discharge of the Intelligence Service's statutory functions which is expected as a result of
disclosing the data and the importance of the objective to be achieved. Staff must consider whether
there is a reasonable alternative that will still meet the proposed objective - i.e. which involves less
intrusion. For example, this could mean disclosure of individual pieces of communications data or of a
subset of the bulk communications data rather than of the whole bulk communications dataset."
42. Prior to any disclosure of BCD, staff must also take reasonable steps to ensure the intended
recipient organisation "has and will maintain satisfactory arrangements for safeguarding the
confidentiality of the data and ensuring that it is securely handled" or have received satisfactory
assurances from the intended recipient with respect to such arrangements (§4.4.5). This applies to all
disclosure, including to other Agencies (§4.4.6), and whether disclosure is of an entire BCD, a subset
of a BCD or an individual piece of data from a BCD (§4.4.6).
43. Disclosure of the whole or subset of a BCD may only be authorised by a Senior Official (equivalent
to a member of the Senior Civil Service) or the Secretary of State (§4.4.1).
Retention/review/deletion
44. The requirement on each of the Intelligence Services to review the justification for continued
retention and use of BCD is set out at §§4.5.1-4.5.2:
"4.5.1 Each Intelligence Service must regularly review, i.e. at intervals of no less than six months, the
operational and legal justification for its continued retention and use of BCD. This should be managed
through a review panel comprised of senior representatives from Information Governance/Compliance,
Operational and Legal teams.
4.5.2 The retention and review process requires consideration of:
- An assessment of the value and use of the dataset during the period under review and in
a historical context;
- the operational and legal justification for ongoing acquisition, continued retention,
including its necessity and proportionality;
- The extent of use and specific examples to illustrate the benefits;
- The level of actual and collateral intrusion posed by retention and exploitation;
- The extent of corporate, legal, reputational or political risk;
- Whether such information could be acquired elsewhere through less intrusive means.
4.5.3 Should the review process find that there remains an ongoing case for acquiring and retaining
BCD, a formal review will be submitted at intervals of no less than six months for consideration by the
relevant Secretary of State. In the event that the Intelligence Service or Secretary of State no longer
deem it to be necessary and proportionate to acquire and retain the BCD, the Secretary of State will
cancel the relevant Section 94 Direction and instruct the CNP concerned to cease supply. The relevant
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