CONFIDENTIAL: SECURITY, LEGAL
ROYAL MAIL CORPORATE SECURITY
INVESTIGATION COMMUNICATION
6th August 2004
Contents:
The meaning of ‘Intrusive Surveillance’
Livescan Fingerprinting
Antecedents
Investigation Policy Review Group
Safe Working Practices
ORONS
1. The meaning of ‘Intrusive Surveillance’
Some feedback indicates that there is confusion over the definition of ‘Intrusive Surveillance’
and that this may limit some of the potentially useful surveillance activities of investigators.
Corporate Security policy on surveillance states:
‘Intrusive’ Surveillance - Surveillance is intrusive only if it is covert surveillance that -
* Is carried out in relation to anything taking place on any residential premises or in any private
vehicle and
* Involves the presence of any individual on the premises or in the vehicle or is carried out by
means of a surveillance device
Royal Mail Group (including Post Office Limited) has no authority under RIPA to perform
‘Intrusive’ surveillance under any circumstances.
Some investigators have interpreted this to mean that they cannot perform surveillance on
suspects who are using their personal vehicle for traveling to/from work or for mail delivery
purposes. The key words in the above policy (which are copied from the Codes of Practice)
are whether investigators or surveillance devices are ON and/or IN the residential premises
or private vehicle.
This means that with the appropriate authority for Directed Surveillance or as an immediate
response to an event investigators may observe a private house or vehicle. Investigators will
need to ensure that they:
e do not put watching or listening devices inside any private residence or private
vehicle;
e do not enter any private residence or private vehicle without the provisions of PACE;
e do not peep through windows or letter box apertures of any private residence unless
it is a matter of any person's health and safety;
e donot examine the contents of any private vehicle through the window although a
cursory glance to determine whether mail is present for a vehicle which has been
used as a conveyance to and from a delivery is acceptable.
Any privacy aspects about looking AT a private house or vehicle should be assessed at the
surveillance application stage with particular consideration given to minimising collateral
intrusion and the avoidance of using zoom lenses and binoculars to see in. Clearly the
intrusive nature of surveilling a vehicle should be less than a house as expectation of privacy
by the subject (or any other 3rd party present) will be less.
2. Livescan Fingerprinting
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Most custody suites in Police stations are now equipped with Livescan technology allowing
the main set of fingerprints, the ‘Tenprint’ to be taken and stored electronically and be placed
on the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (run by PITO who run the PNC).
It also allows marks from crime scenes to be stored.
Currently, the national databases held on the system consist of more than five million sets of
prints and over half a million crime scene marks. Later this year, the system will be capable
of holding 8.2 million sets of prints and 1.2 million marks from crime scenes.
These databases can be used to make searches in a number of ways:
e ‘tenprint’ sets from suspects can be searched against the ‘tenprint’ database to
establish if a criminal history is present;
e marks captured from crime scenes can be searched against the national database of
tenprints from offenders;
e — tenprints from someone in custody can be run through the database of crime scene
marks to establish a match; and
«marks taken from a crime scene can be searched against the database of crime
scene marks to help link crimes.
There are currently some operational problems in respect of the memory capacity of the
Livescan machines themselves. Some machines only have a memory of 100 such
applications, some have 1000. One Royal Mail investigator who had a suspect bailed for
several weeks at a custody suite where the machine held 300 prints, was told that his prints
had “dropped off the memory” when 300 subsequent scans had taken place. This is NOT the
case. Scans do not drop of the system, they must be MANUALLY removed.
Investigators are advised then when having marks or ‘tenprints’ scanned that they ensure (i)
that the authorised user of the system clearly understands the purpose of the scanning and
(ii) that the facility for adding notes to the scan is employed to ensure that there are
instructions such as ‘DO NOT DELETE’ or ‘BAILED FOR 6 WEEKS please contact XXX’ etc
etc.
3. Antecedents
There was a minor formatting change to the Antecedents form in May (CS033). Any copies
printed off before then are not affected. Please replace any electronic versions that may be
kept in separate folders or directories.
4. Investigation Policy Review Group (IPRG)
The Investigation Policy Review Group IPRG met on 5"* August 2004. The purpose of the
group is to review and improve existing investigation policies and guidelines and to identify
areas required for clarification and update. Ongoing work is as follows.
e Arevised Serious Complaints process has been drafted and will replace the current
policy and the Rules and Standards policy. The draft is to be circulated within the
group for comment.
e The IPRG is reviewing and comparing the alternatives for accessing the Human
Resources Database. While this is taking place:
i. whichever method is employed, CS219s (or photocopies) must
always be sent to Criminal Intelligence to maintain a comprehensive
community record of HR access;
ii. external requests for HR data must be forwarded for Criminal
Intelligence to deal with;
iii. Investigation Operation Managers must not authorise AND
acquire their own HR data disclosures.
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« Asafety working party to revise the Safe Working Practices policy and guidelines is to
be formed (see below).
Members of the group are Conrad Critchley, Danny Boles, Ray Pratt, Garth McCarron, lan
Diffley, Marcus Copper, Tony Utting, Alan Bartholomew and Steve Pusey. Please provide
feedback to them or myself over any issues raised or any other matters of investigatory
interest.
5. Safe Working Practices
The IPRG has set up a working party to examine and revise the Safe Working Practices
policy, process and guidelines. This will comprise Conrad Critchley, Danny Boles, Steve
Pusey, Alan Bartholomew and several nominees at different levels within the investigation
operation whose identities will be revealed once they have been consulted. Most teams will
be consulted as part of the ensuing exercise to identify, assess and control safety risks on
investigation work.
For further information or queries about.
Please contac! Conrad Critchley - Tel:
i ‘Mobile (
mmunication
Mobex! GRO}
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