§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the work and objectives of the Government Technical Assistance Centre. [125667]
§ Mr. Charles ClarkeWhen established, the Technical Assistance Centre will be a twenty-four hour facility. Our intention is that it shall be operated by the National Criminal Intelligence Service on behalf of the law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies. It will undertake complex processing needed to derive intelligible material from lawfully intercepted computer-to-computer communications and will provide improved facilities for deriving evidence from lawfully seized computer data.
The Technical Assistance Centre will not analyse the intelligible content of any intercepted or seized material. That will remain a function of the agency which applied for the interception warrant or executed the warrant for seizure of the material.
The primary objective of the Technical Assistance Centre will be to sustain law enforcement capabilities in the face of criminal use of new information and communication technologies. Day-to-day operating procedures for the Centre are being developed by a Home Office-led Project Team.