Additional Oversight
The Intelligence Services Commissioner, The Right Honourable Sir Peter Gibson, has a remit to keep under review:
i) the role of the Secretary of State in authorising warrants for interference with property, intrusive surveillance and interference with wireless telegraphy in respect of the Intelligence Services.
ii) the work of the three Intelligence Services in relation to their responsibilities under RIPA (or, where applicable, the Security Service Act 1989 and Intelligence Services Act 1994), and of the MoD and Armed Forces (except those in Northern Ireland) in relation to responsibilities under RIPA.
iii) The role of the Secretary of State in connection with a) the Intelligence Services’ activities and responsibilities under RIPA, and b) the activities and responsibilities of the MoD and Armed Forces (except those in Northern Ireland) under RIPA.
iv) The arrangements made by the Secretary of State concerning those safeguards introduced to protect encryption keys for intercepted material and communications data. Encryption is covered by Part III of RIPA and concerns steps taken to decode encrypted electronic messages.
Part of the Commissioner’s oversight regime includes biannual inspection visits to the Intelligence Services, departments of the relevant Secretaries of State and the MoD.
All members of the Intelligence Services, the armed forces and officials of the department of the Secretary State are required to provide any information and assistance to enable the Commissioner to carry out his functions.
All breaches of legislation or Codes of Practice are reported to the Commissioner and included in his annual report to the Prime Minister, which also documents his findings on the work of the Intelligence Services throughout the previous year. The Prime Minister then lays a copy of the report before each house of parliament.
The report is divided into a publishable section and a confidential annexe. The publishable section includes as much information as possible without compromising the work of the Intelligence Services. Due to its sensitivity however, the confidential annexe is not published
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