ACT Policing has issued a formal statement explaining its procedures which were referred to by the Commonwealth Ombudsman relating to requests for telecommunications data in 2015-16.
The Ombudsman found the police did not have the appropriate delegation to approve 116 requests for the data during a two-week period between 13 and 26 October 2015. The police later discovered another 3,249 requests approved without the correct authority.
In its statement, ACT Policing said it disclosed to the Ombudsman the fact that its ‘authorised position holder’ did not have the appropriate delegation to approve the 116 requests at the time they were made.
“This was the result of an administrative oversight when the relevant ACT Policing position was inadvertently omitted from the list of authorised positions,” the statement said.
“The omission occurred when the Australian Federal Police’s Instrument of Delegation was updated.”
It said the officer who previously held the delegation had continued issuing authorities in good faith unaware that the delegation had been omitted.
It said the data that were requested included identifying the registered holder of a particular telephone number for the purpose of enforcing the criminal law or to assist in finding a missing person.
“None of the data in question was obtained in order to identify a journalist’s source,” it said.
“It is important to note that while the delegation was not in place, all authorisations and requests were managed in accordance with the relevant policies and procedures, including security, storage and disclosure.”
It said new measures had been introduced to ensure the issue would not reoccur.
ACT Policing’s full statement can be accessed on its website at this PS News link.
