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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)
- [Law Enforcement Agencies]/Intelligence. These datasets primarily contain
operationally focussed information from law enforcement or other intelligence
agencies.
- Travel. These datasets contain information which enable the identification
of individuals' travel activity.
- Communications. These datasets allow the identification of individuals
where the basis of information held is primarily related to communications
data, e.g. a telephone directory.
- Finance. These datasets allow the identification of finance related activity of
individuals.
- Population. These datasets provide population data or other information
which could be used to help identify individuals, e.g. passport details.
- Commercial. These datasets provide details of corporations/individuals
involved in commercial activities.
45) A number of these datasets will be available to the public at large. Some of these
publicly available datasets will be sourced from commercial bodies, and we will pay for
them (as another public body or a member of the public could do). MI5 also acquires
BPD from Government departments, from [MI6] and GCHQ and from law enforcement
bodies.
46) MI5's holding of passport information is key to our ability to be able to investigate
travel activity. Holding that data in bulk, and being able to cross-match this to other data
and other BPD held, is what enables us to find the connection and "join the dots." That
would simply not be possible if we did not hold the bulk data in the first place. Using
travel data, for example, to try and establish the travel history of a particular individual
will necessarily involve holding, and searching across a range of, BPD and other data that
we hold, and it is through fusing these that we are able to resolve leads and identify
particular individuals, with high reliability, at pace and with minimum intrusion.
47) Holding the data in bulk (and holding data relating to persons not of intelligence
interest) is an inevitable and necessary prerequisite to being able to use these types of
dataset to make the right connections between disparate pieces of information. Without
the haystack one cannot find the needle; and the same result cannot be achieved (without
fusion/combination) through carrying out a series of individual searches or queries of a
particular dataset (or a number of datasets).
48) It is also relevant to note that as BPD's are searched electronically there was
inevitably significantly less intrusion into individuals' privacy, as any data which has not
produced a "hit" will not be viewed by the human operator of the system, but only
searched electronically
8. Included in BPD there will be information obtained as a result of the lawful operations of the SIAs
themselves, pursuant to interception in accordance with s.8 (4) of RIPA (considered by this Tribunal in
Liberty/Privacy (No. 1) [2015] 3 All ER 142 ) and from Computer Network Exploitation ("CNE")
(considered by this Tribunal in Privacy International and Greennet Limited v. Secretary of State
for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs ("Greennet") [ 2016] UKIP Trib 14_85-CH).
BCD
9. The issue as to BCD arises out of directions to PECNs given by the Home and Foreign Secretaries
pursuant to s.94 for the provision of communications data. S.94 reads in material part - as amended in
2003, and we leave the original in square brackets:www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKIPTrib/2016/15_110-CH.html&query=([2016])+AND+(UKIPTrib)+AND+(15_110-CH)
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