What is Communications Data?

[Quentin Campbell]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Fairbrother [mailto:zenadsl6186@zen.co.uk]=20
> Sent: 20 November 2002 09:19
> To: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> Subject: Re: What is Communications Data?
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> Quentin Campbell wrote:
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[snip]
> > RIPA does not define "content" but in S21(4) it does define=20
> > "communications data" so it seems reasonable for the ISP to=20
> conclude=20
> > that (for RIPA purposes)
> >=20
> > content =3D "the whole communication" - "the communications data"
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> Reasonable? Not really. Content is that which is contained in=20
> a communication. Communications data is something else, which=20
> may or may not be contained in the communication.

My discussion was confined to e-mail and addressed a particular question
posed by Simon Watkin. My answer involved an ISP who has to separate the
"communications data" part from content in an e-mail communication [in
response to a S22(4) notice]. In that context my definition of "content"
is perfectly reasonable.=20

My discussion acknowledged that there is also "communications data"
outside of the communication but that sort of "communications data"
cannot be confused with "content" so was not relevant to my discussion.
An example of the latter sort of data is the name/address of the owner
of the mailbox into which the communication was delivered.=20

[snip]=20
> > RIPA offers little help to the ISP except to provide by implication=20
> > the (almost circular) definition that content is that part of the=20
> > e-mail message which is not "communications data".
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> No. RIPA does not say or imply anything like that at all.=20
> Parts of the whole communication can be BOTH content AND=20
> communications data.

What part of my example has that characteristic?

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> Being content does not stop "traffic data" from being=20
> demanded. If divulging a piece of data involves an=20
> interception it would be excluded from Ch2. If the piece of=20
> data is content there may be an interception, but divulging=20
> "traffic data" is excluded from being interception by=20
> 2(5)(a), whether it is content or not.

Divulging content that is not "traffic data" is interception. That we
can agree on.

The problem I am addressing is that, given some "content" in an e-mail
communication, how do you determine what is "traffic data" among that
content. It turns out that in the case of e-mail this is not
self-evident.=20

Data that purports to identify person/apparatus/location is not "traffic
data" [thus not "communications data] if it is not for the purposes
defined in 21(4)(a).=20

My example was exactly of that nature: some data (To, From, Received)
that purported to identify person/apparatus/location was present in a
communication but it clearly and demonstrably was not there for the
purposes defined in S21(4).

Note that 2(5)(a) refers "only to so much of the communication as
consists in any traffic data...for the purposes of
any...telcommunications system...by means of which it is...transmitted".


The rest of the (text of the) communication is content surely? That was
exactly my earlier definition of "content" in respect of an e-mail
communication.

Quentin
---
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"Any opinion expressed above is mine. The University can get its own."=20