Among yesterday’s front pages was a data visualisation which, at first glance, was one of the most effective I’ve ever seen: the Independent had made an infographic showing yesterday’s £6bn budget cuts in context - as a fraction of a debt mountain.
Then I looked closer - and something’s very, very wrong.
Can you tell what it […]
Below are my thoughts on another recent Help Me Investigate project - this time looking at Birmingham Council’s use of the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which allows covert surveillance powers for investigating misdemeanours.
Figures released in response to this FOI request by Paul Bradshaw reveal - I believe, at first glance - that Birmingham is compartively trigger happy, using powers granted by the act six times more than typical councils.
Update 3pm Friday 7th: Please see the comments section for a health warning over the 1,707 statistic and resulting conclusion thaty Birmingham is so prolific a user of RIPA. This investigation remains a work in progress!
Birmingham accounts for roughly a 60th of the UK’s population (pop c. 1 million). In 2007 (calendar year) there were 1,707 council applications to use RIPA powers nationwide.
Unfortunanately these totals are given in financial years. For 2006/7 there were 115 uses of RIPA in Birmingham, in 2007/8 there were 99.
So conservatively assuming there were 100 uses of RIPA in 2007, Birmingham accounted for just under 6% of all local council RIPA uses, despite only accounting for 1% of the population. So it’s surveilling roughly six times as many of its citizens as the typical council.
Other issues get more subjective. Home Office guidlines stress “very strict safeguards” on RIPA use, which should be in “exceptional circumstances” only. Does having 22 officials authorised to use RIPA match that? Does surveilling 575 people? Personally I have my doubts.
Take fly tipping. RIPA has been used 27 times in relation to fly tipping, despite “late bins” being one of the example issues used to reassure the public on RIPA safeguards.
Relevent extract from Home Office:
“Local authorities have a range of powers available to them to tackle littering and fly tipping. However it shouldn’t be necessary or appropriate to use RIPA directed surveillance powers to observe people putting their rubbish bins out early for collection. RIPA allows certain public authorities to authorise covert surveillance and covert human intelligence sources for the prevention and detection of crime and prevention of disorder – but only where it is necessary and proportionate to do so.
When councils use RIPA we expect them to use these laws proportionately and sensibly in the interest of investigating crimes and protecting their communities.”
As to next steps, the prosecution issues and so forth are clearly going to prove difficult to appeal. Is there any hope of persuading some local bloggers - or better - local papers to pick up what’s been got already and trying to encourage some people to come forward?
Identifying some people involved would both humanise this, and help get a subjective handle on how reasonable Birmingham’s RIPA use is.
Any thoughts?
The answer may surprise you - but right up there among them is the News of the World, it seems.
Last week it emerged a local council was using surveillance powers introduced to help fight terrorism to monitor families applying to secondary schools, the Act involved - the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) - jumped to public notice.
But the NOTW had noticed it a bit earlier. In February, it emerged that MP Sadiq Khan had been bugged while visiting a constituent in prison. The law involved in authorising such surveillance is - you’ve guessed it - RIPA.
In the wake this story, it seems the NOTW sent Freedom of Information requests round to public authorities across the country. According to an advisory published by “Information Lawyer” Ibrahim Hasan, the News of the World requested:
1. The total number of requests made to access peoples’ personal information
2. A list of the types of information sought – for example, but not limited to, mobile phone records, telephone subscriber info, and so on. Please provide as much information as to the different types of information that have been requested.
Hasan’s release goes on to helpfully list exemptions which could be used to refuse this request. You can take a look at his post here (PDF).
Still, good thinking that reporter - even if the request went public and the story came in to prominence in the meantime. Be interested to see if anything appears in there as a result, of the request - given this week’s splash is a Karen Matthews ‘expose’, it doesn’t seem a given.
Bonus RIPA background
RIPA is the Act which allows the Government to compel individuals to release passwords for encrypted data - one of the most controversial aspects of the law at the time. If the individual claims to be unable to decrypt any data stored on a computer they own, they must be able to prove they cannot do so - a difficult task. The Act also governs electronic interception and monitoring of phonecalls and emails. The Act was strengthened in 2003.
The first group to be hit by the decryption powers of the Act were animal rights campaigners, back in 2007.
Ministerial Assurances
When the Act was passing through Parliament, Ministers promised measures had been taken to protect privacy:
“The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill contains within it all the protections necessary in the event of the use of these vital powers.”
Jack Straw
“The system proposed in the Bill is designed to ensure that the need-to-know principle is strictly observed and that details about particular individuals are shared to the minimum extent possible.”
Jane Kennedy
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal
One of the privacy safeguards was the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which considers complaints from anyone who feels they have been unfairly investigated under the Act. By 2003, it had considered 470 complaints.
