Law enforcement needs updated powers to protect people in the digital age

National Police Chiefs’ Council Chair Sara Thornton said:

“We use our powers of investigation, like access to communications data, to protect the public, preserve life and prevent and detect crime.

“Our capabilities have not kept up with changes in technology and how people communicate, meaning there are more and more blind-spots where we can't trace criminal activity or find crucial information to protect people at risk of harm.

“With independent scrutiny and authorisation, we need to be able to pursue investigative leads in a digital space by requesting information about where people are connecting to the internet; who they are speaking to and the sites they are visiting but not the content of what is said. This is the modern equivalent of using phone numbers in a targeted way to find out who someone has called or texted; a simple investigative capability that has been accepted for many years.

“We have been asked to present our operational requirement for investigatory powers and we have done so.  It is for Government and Parliament to determine what powers are available to us and how they are overseen.”

Case studies about how internet connection records could be used in routine policing:

Metropolitan Police – Child sexual exploitation

An individual stated in an internet chat room that he had a sexual interest in young children and had “touched” in the past.  His profile in the chat room also included a number of images of young children.  The chat room provided the police with the IP address used to send the messages.  However, the mobile network provider was unable to resolve this IP address to an individual due to IP address sharing.  If internet connection records were retained it would be possible to ask the network provider, which of their customers had used the specific IP address to access the chat room at a given point in time. This would have provided critical intelligence to assist in identifying the suspect.

As it was not possible to resolve this IP address, the investigation could not be continued.

Anonymous missing person case

A 15 year old girl contacted her boyfriend stating she intended to commit suicide; her phone was then turned off and she had gone missing.   In this case, she was contacting her boyfriend using calls and texts so police could contact her phone provider and ask for the details of who she’d contacted, when and where from in the preceding days.  This provided information that helped find her location, where she was safe.

If she’d been using an online communications service rather than calls or texts, police wouldn’t have been able to access the information they used to find her because internet connection records are not currently required to be held by communications service providers.