Obfuscation and work arounds: How the intelligence agencies have been obtaining communications data | Privacy International

he Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 further splits communications data into three types:  traffic data; service use information; and subscriber data.

“Traffic data” can be understood as including caller line identity, dialed number identity, cell location data and other details of the location or ‘address’ of a sender of recipient of a communication e.g. X phone number called Y phone number at 1:30 a.m. on 1.7.2016 for 5 minutes, while X was located at 123 High Street, London. With enough signal strength you could see whether the phone was at the front or back of the house, using multiple towers to triangulate location.

“Service data” / “Service Use Information” is data relating to the use made by any person of a communication service and may be the kind of information that habitually used to appear on an itemized billing document supplied to customers (s.21(4)(b) of RIPA and paragraphs 2.28 and 2.29 of the code of practice for the Acquisition and Disclosure of Communications Data.) It includes billing and other types of service use information such as call waiting and barring, redirection services and records of postal items;

subscriber information” is data held or obtained by the provider of a communications service ‘in connection with’ the provision of the service. This may be the kind of information which a customer typically provides when they sign up to use a service e.g., the recorded name and address of the subscriber of a telephone number or the account holder of an email address, bank details and details of credit cards etc attached to a user’s account (see section 22(4)(c) of RIPA and paragraphs 2.30 and 2.38 of the code of practice for the Acquisition and Disclosure of Communications Data (footnote 18)).