When completing our inspections into law enforcement’s use of surveillance:
- we receive briefings on new equipment and techniques;
- we review how officers and staff are trained;
- we interview a range of individuals, including operational staff and authorising officers;
- we challenge the rationale for operations undertaken to ensure the most proportionate techniques are used, focusing on intelligence handling to ensure that all relevant material is appropriately safeguarded and destroyed; and
- we test whether staff properly understand the requirements in law to retain records that track the use of technical equipment used to carry out covert activity.