Confirm whether or not it is accurate, from your response, to say that there were 10 separate Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) operations over the requested period?
Yes, with the caveat that most communications authorisations relate only to the collection of historical data and therefore might not be considered a “operation”
Please state the prosecutorial outcomes (i.e. did this investigation lead to an arrest, fine, warning, conviction etc) for each of the operations, as well as telling me the months over which each operation was undertaken.
One case is still in the court system (Historical comms data)
One case resulted in conviction and fine (Historical comms data)
The other cases did not result in formal action.
In general terms, what techniques (i.e. covert surveillance in a public place, officers parked in vehicles using binoculars to observe suspects) were deployed in the directed surveillance operation.
Online surveillance of social media posts
What data was acquired in the communication data acquisitions (i.e. billing history, subscriber details etc) and what techniques- in general terms- were deployed in the CHIS operation.
Subscriber information and billing information (Historical comms data)
This related to the sale of illicit tobacco, only online activity took place (Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS))
Provide as much detail as possible about what “doorstep trader activity” was taking place, what types of “counterfeit goods” were being supplied (and by whom) and what exactly you mean by “mis descriptions of goods and services” (i.e. please specify what these “goods and services” were and how they were being sold illegally).
“Doorstep Trader” – Unnecessary, overpriced, and incompetent roofing work (x2)
“Counterfeit” – sale of counterfeit clothing by a business
“Counterfeit” – sale of counterfeit and smuggled tobacco
“mis description of goods and services” – sale and installation of solar panels and storage devices involving a range of mis descriptions.
State the number of days in total your council was authorised (by a judge) to carry out the RIPA operations over the requested period (01/01/18 to 28/02/21). Please can you answer this in days, not months.
150 days
If known, please state how long the actual surveillance activity took in days (or if less in hours) overall for all the RIPA operations over the requested period? By ‘actual’ surveillance I mean, for instance, how long officers were physically conducting covert surveillance in a public place.
Neither of the Surveillance operations involved physically conducting covert surveillance in a public place
The number of days in total all the RIPA operations were active for in total. By ‘active’ I mean the date from the day the first bit of surveillance activity occurred to the day the last operation was terminated.
150