For Dame Muffy Calder and the small group of teachers, former spies and technical consultants that advise Britain’s oversight physique for intelligence businesses and police on developments in know-how, their work is all about “belief”.
Calder, a distinguished laptop scientist whose analysis pursuits embrace synthetic intelligence (AI), computational modelling and automatic reasoning, is the chair of the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP), a gaggle of six consultants charged with advising Britain’s surveillance oversight physique.
The function of the TAP is to advise the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Workplace (IPCO), overseen by Brian Leveson in his function as investigatory powers commissioner, and 9 judicial commissioners who present impartial oversight of the police and intelligence companies’ use of intrusive surveillance powers.
In Calder’s first public interview, the chair of the TAP mentioned speedy developments in know-how had been having a huge effect on intelligence and investigatory powers.
“It’s completely apparent that we had been going to be doing one thing on AI,” she says. “Individuals are very rightly elevating problems with equity, transparency and bias, however they don’t seem to be all the time unpicking them and asking what this implies in a technical setting,” she says.
TAP, for instance, has suggested on automated speaker recognition, following the emergence of publicly out there instruments able to robotically transcribing conversations and recognising the voices of particular person audio system.
Can the TAP preserve tempo?
Can this small group of consultants act as an efficient counterbalance to organisations equivalent to GCHQ, MI5 and MI6, which had a mixed funds of £4.5bn in 2004-2005?
Calder is assured that they will. “We have now a broad vary of experience, and all of our experience overlaps. I don’t wish to use the phrase polymath, however I’ve simply mentioned it,” she says.
“It’s apparent that we had been going to be doing one thing on AI. Individuals are very rightly elevating problems with equity, transparency and bias, however they don’t seem to be all the time unpicking them and asking what this implies in a technical setting”
Muffy Calder, Technical Advisory Panel
“We’re capable of contribute to areas exterior of our specific experience and we have now numerous totally different networks, so after we don’t find out about one thing, we all know who to ask,” she provides.
The TAP’s shut working relationship with the intelligence companies has prompted some to ask whether or not the regulator could also be too trusting.
The BBC reported in June 2025, for instance, that MI5 persuaded IPCO to vary a report into MI5’s dealing with of a violent neo-Nazi agent after the spy company supplied it with false info.
One of many investigatory powers commissioner’s most up-to-date controversial choices was to log off on a technical functionality discover (TCN) issued by the house secretary, Yvette Cooper, towards Apple in January 2025.
Relatively than adjust to the order, Apple withdrew its Superior Knowledge Safety (ADP) service from the UK, although it stays out there in the remainder of the world.
The existence of the order was protected by a secrecy order, till it was leaked to the Washington Publish.
Pc Weekly understands that Leveson didn’t seek the advice of the TAP earlier than he permitted the TCN towards Apple. Calder is unable to touch upon the Apple case.
“I really feel that we’re consulted appropriately and that we will make our voice heard appropriately,” she says. “I’m very snug that after we are requested, our solutions are taken very significantly. It could be uncommon that we become involved in particular particulars,” she provides.
Turning on the TAP
The TAP started life shortly after IPCO was fashioned in September 2017. Sir Bernard Silverman, former chief scientific advisor to the House Workplace and professor of statistics at Oxford College, grew to become its first chair.
Muffy Calder, professor of formal strategies (computing science) at Glasgow College, Derek McAuley, professor of digital economic system on the College of Nottingham, and John Davies, a former chief know-how officer from BAE Techniques Utilized Intelligence, had been the primary to affix the panel in 2018.
As we speak, the panel has grown to 6 individuals, break up equally between three teachers and three know-how consultants with backgrounds within the defence business and the intelligence companies (see field: Present members of the Technical Advisory Panel).
Panel members spend their time roughly equally on three duties. The primary is advising judicial commissioners – the serving or retired judges chargeable for authorising surveillance warrants for the police and intelligence companies – on technical features of surveillance and privateness.
They accompany judicial commissioners to on-site inspections of intelligence and police organisations. And so they act as an antenna for IPCO to choose up developments in know-how and transient the organisation on the implications of these developments for oversight of intelligence and surveillance.
“We attempt to preserve a steadiness. Are we responding to a query or a question? Are we doing horizon scanning, fascinated about altering applied sciences? Are we educating ourselves and ensuring that we’re updated with altering applied sciences? And are we going out on inspections? As a result of that helps us perceive how know-how is being utilized,” she says.
Horizon scanning
The TAP’s day-to-day work is to advise IPCO on the potential influence of applied sciences that could possibly be utilized by the intelligence companies earlier than they’re deployed.
Our members all convey one thing to the desk. They’ve lots of experience, and they can contribute. You may’t shut us up Muffy Calder, Technical Advisory Panel
“We would elevate a know-how as a result of we may see its potential, not as a result of we knew it was going for use, however we may think about that it could possibly be used. So, we might elevate one thing that we’re [horizon] scanning about, however that’s type of why we’re right here,” she says.
One of many greatest challenges dealing with IPCO is the influence of synthetic intelligence on surveillance oversight. AI permits computer systems to make deductions and draw hyperlinks from huge quantities of knowledge gathered by GCHQ, from probes into web cables, harvesting passwords and person names, and exploiting vulnerabilities to entry cell phones and computer systems.
IPCO contracts TAP members to work 20 days a yr, however Calder says the work is attention-grabbing and rewarding, so she finally ends up placing in additional time than her allotted hours.
The TAP will not be a committee, which implies it operates informally, says Calder.
“Our members are all there as a result of they bring about one thing to the desk. They have lots of experience, and they can contribute. You may’t shut us up. We all the time have issues to speak about and new areas of know-how,” she says.
Why it’s not doable to measure intrusion
When the TAP first started its work, its members had been enthusiastic about discovering a approach of scientifically measuring the intrusiveness of various surveillance measures.
The panel organised a workshop in Cambridge, opening it as much as teachers with a variety of views on privateness, together with the civil society organisations Privateness Worldwide and the Open Rights Group.
As a mathematician and a pc scientist, Calder wished to analyze whether or not there was a method to scientifically measure the diploma of intrusion into privateness brought on by totally different surveillance strategies.
“I assumed, we will quantify this. It’s not simply the amount, it’s the character of the info. For instance, examine [the privacy impact of] information for just a few individuals over an extended time frame towards information held on just a few individuals over a shorter time frame – you can begin to quantify it.”
However arithmetic alone can’t present a significant measure of intrusion. An excessive amount of relies on context.
“More and more, our view, and positively my view, has develop into rather more refined about how we make the judgement about what’s much less intrusive,” she says. “I’m not positive we are going to ever have metrics of intrusion in a quantified sense.”
Web connection data
The TAP has suggested IPCO over a brand new investigatory energy launched beneath the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, which permits intelligence and regulation enforcement businesses to observe web connection data (ICRs).
Web connection data, that are collected and retained by telephone and web service suppliers, file the companies individuals have accessed by way of the web. They may vary from an internet site or the usage of an on the spot messaging app, equivalent to Sign or WhatsApp, or a service like Google Maps.
They don’t embrace the content material of an internet site or messaging apps, however can be utilized, for instance, to establish everybody who has visited a specific web site, or the communication companies utilized by a specific particular person or group of people.
The UK is the one nation among the many 5 Eyes nations (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, US) to have required communications corporations to retailer ICRs for 12 months, however its growth has been gradual as a result of it requires service suppliers to have the precise know-how in place to seize data.
A TAP member suggested a judicial commissioner earlier than the commissioner permitted two communications information retention notices issued to 2 unidentified telecommunications corporations in 2019 for the primary trial of ICR surveillance.
The Nationwide Crime Company (NCA) briefed TAP members on the trial, which targeted on monitoring entry to web sites whose sole function was to offer entry to unlawful photographs of kids. It recognized greater than 120 topics of curiosity.
The House Workplace’s Nationwide Communications Knowledge Service quietly expanded the usage of ICRs in 2022, when it awarded a contract, price as much as £2m, to BAE Techniques Utilized Intelligence as a part of a programme to create a Nationwide ICRs Service, first reported by Public Expertise.
Calder was not personally concerned in IPCO’s consultations over ICRs however different members of the TAP “had been actually out, serving to and advising on the trials”.
This included offering briefings for judicial commissioners and IPCO’s authorized advisors and inspectors on ICRs and producing inner steering for IPCO workers.
The TAP was capable of make a “vital” distinction by providing recommendation on the intricacies of web addresses, together with, for instance, the variations between an internet site handle and web site content material – a line that’s not all the time clear lower, says Calder.
“The entire thing could be very dynamic and altering. What constitutes an web handle, what constitutes information, and what constitutes metadata,” says Calder.
He advised a gathering of the 5 Eyes Intelligence Oversight and Evaluate Council in London that modifications in know-how had been “figuring out potential weaknesses or gaps in regulatory requirements, governance constructions and moral norms”.
AI has the potential to automate each side of surveillance, from automating purposes for warrants, to rushing up the gathering, evaluation and evaluation of intelligence.
That raises new questions for IPCO, together with whether or not AI will, as seems inevitable, permit higher numbers of individuals to be covertly monitored and investigated. What is going to that imply for people’ privateness rights when they’re intentionally focused, and what is going to it imply for the privateness rights of individuals by chance caught up in covert surveillance as collateral harm?
“Whereas AI holds the potential to generate new insights and predictions, its utility may have vital implications for privateness if not managed responsibly,” the oversight physique warned in a coverage doc about AI revealed in March.
AI now inevitably types a big a part of the TAP’s work. Its members have “engaged” with the UK intelligence neighborhood, with the purpose of guaranteeing compliance and safeguards are constructed into AI developments, quite than thought-about as an afterthought.
TAP members have taken half in AI workshops at GCHQ, acquired briefings from different intelligence businesses and developed a three-tier coaching programme for judicial commissioners and different IPCO workers.
The panel has additionally produced an “evaluation support” to help police, intelligence companies and round 600 different authorities businesses regulated by IPCO, to consider whether or not the usage of AI is proportionate and minimises invasion of privateness. Additionally it is out there to different organisations.
AI may have the potential to automate oversight of the federal government businesses monitored by IPCO, for instance, by detecting inappropriate database use and actions that will not be legally compliant. Nevertheless, Calder says that’s not a part of the TAP’s remit.
“We’re extra involved with the usage of AI within the our bodies we oversee, not how we use it ourselves,” she provides.
And the way are these our bodies utilizing it? Calder says that’s a query greatest addressed to them.
IPCO has three specialist inspection groups, one specializing in interception businesses, together with the UK intelligence neighborhood, the ministry of defence and the Nationwide Crime Company (NCA).
One other inspects a variety of presidency our bodies which have entry to data of telephone and web communications information, displaying, for instance, who phoned or emailed whom, how lengthy the decision took and when it occurred, however not the content material of the communication.
A 3rd inspects public authorities’ use of surveillance, covert human intelligence sources and property interference powers.
In accordance with the most up-to-date full-year figures out there, IPCO carried out greater than 380 inspections in 2023, together with over 130 inspections on native authorities, 115 on regulation enforcement and police, 54 on prisons and 38 on intelligence businesses.
By attending inspections, Calder says TAP members can achieve a greater understanding of what IPCO does, permitting them to supply higher recommendation. TAP members can even assist to elucidate technical points to the inspectors.
“We will perceive what the inspector is making an attempt to get at, however they may not know the small print of the know-how, so we may help them phrase the query, or certainly perceive the reply,” she says.
The equities course of
Since 2021, TAP members have attended inspections of GCHQ’s “equities course of”. That is the method the place GCHQ and different authorities businesses determine whether or not to alert companies and know-how suppliers to recognized safety vulnerabilities, or preserve them secret to allow them to be lawfully utilized by intelligence and regulation enforcement businesses for hacking into laptop programs and telephones.
Calder says she has no views on the place the steadiness lies between disclosing vulnerabilities in order that organisations can safe their laptop programs, or conserving them secret to allow them to be used as a instrument by regulation enforcement and intelligence companies for tools interference (hacking).
“We don’t set coverage. We don’t set views. We’re scientific and technical advisors,” she says.
“However we might pay attention, and we would have the ability to contribute as a result of there’s a subjective choice being made there, and we would have the ability to contribute to the implications of going both approach,” she says.
That might imply, for instance, advising on the technical penalties of higher disclosure, or decrease disclosure.
David and Goliath?
Because it grew to become totally operational in 2019, the TAP has had a number of briefings with intelligence businesses on the technical features of interception and surveillance.
In accordance with public studies, it has acquired briefings from GCHQ on developments in computing, together with AI and machine studying, authorized points and bilateral preparations on information sharing between the UK and the US.
“It’s important that we’re briefed, in order that we perceive the context on which we’re giving recommendation, so we perceive what’s getting used now and what could be used sooner or later,” she says.
Belief versus authorized powers
The Technical Advisory Panel has authorized powers beneath Part 247 of the Investigatory Powers Act to require organisations to reveal paperwork and data required for its work.
In observe, the TAP has by no means used these powers. The work of the TAP, Calder suggests, is much less about invoking authorized powers and extra about constructing a trusted relationship with the businesses that IPCO oversees.
“I feel, theoretically, we’re allowed to go anyplace and ask something we wish to, besides we will’t maintain up an investigation [by police or an intelligence agency],” she says.
Over time, the TAP’s relationship with the organisations IPCO oversees has “modified and advanced as we found out work with the businesses”, she says. “It seems like we’re able of belief.”
When belief fails
There are events when belief between IPCO and the organisations it oversees turns into strained.
The Safety Service, MI5, has been criticised by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal for its lower than candid strategy to the oversight physique and the courts.
BBC journalist Daniel De Simone revealed in June 2025 that MI5 had given false statements to IPCO and had supplied false proof to a number of courts.
MI5 had beforehand tried to dissuade De Simone from reporting the actions of an MI5 agent often called X, a violent right-wing extremist who violently assaulted his girlfriend.
When that failed, it took authorized motion to stop the agent from being named, regardless of the chance X posed to different girls.
MI5’s false proof led IPCO to rewrite a beforehand vital report about MI5 in a optimistic mild, in keeping with the BBC report.
De Simone wrote that the episode “raises questions on how simply IPCO accepts false assurances from MI5, when it’s supposed to make sure the Safety Service works throughout the regulation and within the public curiosity”.
Calder and IPCO mentioned that with proceedings ongoing, it will be inappropriate to touch upon the case till after the courtroom had given its judgment.
MI5’s technical setting
Members of the TAP additionally took half in inspections of MI5’s laptop programs, often called the “technical setting”, after the intelligence service didn’t disclose severe compliance points that put MI5 in breach of the regulation.
MI5 knew concerning the issues with a few of the information collected as early as 2015 and 2016, describing the issue areas as akin to the “Wild West” in inner paperwork, however had didn’t alert the house secretary or oversight our bodies equivalent to IPCO.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal present in 2023 that MI5 had unlawfully gathered and retained hundreds of thousands of individuals’s non-public information and that successive dwelling secretaries continued to log off on surveillance warrants, even after that they had acquired clear indications that it was performing unlawfully.
Caroline Wilson Palow, director of Privateness Worldwide, which along with Liberty, introduced the case towards MI5, tells Pc Weekly: “Sadly, the businesses have a historical past of not all the time residing as much as the belief positioned in them by oversight our bodies.
“MI5 knew about these failures for years with out revealing them to both the house secretary or related oversight our bodies. Relating to oversight, we should confirm, not belief alone.”
The case for transparency
Ian Brown, a advisor on web regulation, significantly referring to info safety and privateness, argues that there’s a case for extra transparency over the TAP’s recommendation and the way judicial commissioners have responded to it.
He means that members of the TAP may seem earlier than Parliament’s Intelligence and Safety Committee – in non-public when it’s essential – to debate issues of nationwide safety for higher democratic scrutiny.
The TAP produces categorised variations of its studies, that are despatched to the house secretary and Scotland’s cupboard secretary for justice. Unclassified variations are revealed in IPCO’s annual report, the newest of which was revealed in 2022.
“I don’t wish to stray into having an opinion right here, however I’ll say I’m very content material with this,” says Calder. “I feel {our relationships} are constructed on belief, and we even have lots of belief within the system, and you’re simply going to need to belief me after I say this.
“I do suppose this setup is world-leading, and it really works very nicely as a result of we work on belief. I don’t suppose there can be something to be gained; it will develop into a lot extra bureaucratic and formulaic,” she provides.
Calder is assured that judicial commissioners take the recommendation of the TAP beneath real consideration after they make choices. The function of the TAP will not be merely to offer “know-how washing” to judicial choices.
“I merely wouldn’t be on this function if that wasn’t the case. It’s my skilled private standing. That is one thing that issues. I wouldn’t do it if it was a token.”
Throughout her time within the TAP, Calder says that there has not been a case of the TAP’s recommendation being ignored. And if it was, she would really feel very snug about elevating it with the investigatory powers commissioner.
Tips on how to be a part of the TAP
It’s not doable to use to develop into a member of IPCO’s Technical Advisory Panel. Jobs aren’t marketed. Candidates are invited.
One of many necessities is that candidates need to be ready to undergo “developed vetting”, probably the most complete and intrusive degree of safety clearance, required for individuals having common entry to high secret materials.
Candidates can come from the intelligence and defence neighborhood, academia and business.
“Within the panel, we talk about who we would want and what abilities we would want, and the place potential candidates may come from. However it’s very a lot on their experience and their potential to work throughout the TAP.”
The investigatory powers commissioner, on the recommendation of the chair of the TAP, makes the final word choice.
The TAP in 2025 is break up 50:50 between teachers and folks with backgrounds within the defence business and the intelligence companies. Out of three non-academics on the TAP, not less than two have had careers in GCHQ, and one with BAE Techniques, which has shut connections with the intelligence neighborhood. BAE Techniques, for instance, makes probes utilized by the intelligence neighborhood to intercept information from communications cables.
The TAP has been criticised for being too near the intelligence companies and regulation enforcement to provide completely goal views on the proportionality of the surveillance methods it oversees.
However Calder says that’s not the case.
“I feel you need to come again to our remit. To start with, our members aren’t representing something. They’re consultants. They’ve experience and so they have a capability to work with one another to supply scientific and technical recommendation,” she says.
IPCO says it usually engages with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that advocate privateness. They’ve been invited to contribute to consultations and data days with judicial commissioners.
Prior to now, IPCO’s makes an attempt at transparency have foundered. An early try by IPCO to rent an skilled on the Investigatory Powers Act, supported by former members of the police and intelligence companies, was deserted following objections from MI5.
A courtroom discovered that the House Workplace had unfairly withdrawn Eric Variety’s safety clearance after MI5 had complained that his work with pro-privacy NGOs raised questions over his trustworthiness with categorised materials.
Just lately, IPCO has taken steps in the direction of higher openness, with each investigatory powers commissioner Leveson and the chairman of TAP giving public interviews.
IPCO has additionally held non-public conferences with NGOs in current months, with extra scheduled. In accordance with one one who attended a gathering, nevertheless, the approaches have felt extra like “box-ticking” than a real try to interact with civil society.
Understanding the regulation
Calder says she has discovered her time on the TAP extraordinarily attention-grabbing and rewarding, however admits that attending to grips with understanding the regulation has been intellectually difficult.
We needed to dedicate lots of effort and time to understanding the Investigatory Powers Act. It could have been a lot simpler if it had been written in technical language Muffy Calder, Technical Advisory Panel
“We’re technologists, and I’m a pc scientist. I hadn’t actually thought a lot concerning the regulation earlier than, and I used to be handed this large e-book, the Investigatory Powers Act, and it’s an terrible lot to be taught.”
The IPA was not written with know-how consultants in thoughts, and even authorized professionals discover it tough to interpret.
“We needed to dedicate lots of effort and time to understanding this laws. It could have been a lot simpler if it had been written in technical language,” says Calder.
“The attorneys do assist us, and so they speak to us as nicely. It’s a form of workforce exercise to assist us perceive. That is very area of interest technical recommendation. We actually have to know the area,” she says.
