Part 6: Bulk warrants Chapter 3: Bulk equipment interference warrants Section 178: Power to issue bulk equipment interference warrants
This section sets out the power to issue bulk equipment interference warrants. The Secretary of State may issue a bulk equipment interference warrant only where it is necessary and proportionate for one or more specified statutory purposes. Subsection (1) makes clear that the interests of national security must always be one of those purposes. Except in urgent cases, the decision to issue a warrant must also be approved by a Judicial Commissioner.
	Subsection (1) also requires that the Secretary of State must consider that each of the operational purposes specified in the warrant is a purpose for which the examination of intercepted content or secondary data is or may be necessary. Operational purposes limit the purposes for which data collected under a warrant can be selected for examination and no official is permitted to select data for examination other than as permitted by these purposes. Section 183 sets out more detail about operational purposes.
	This subsection makes clear that the operational purposes specified on a warrant must relate to one or more of the statutory purposes specified on the warrant. For example, if a bulk equipment interference warrant is issued in the interests of national security and for the purpose of preventing and detecting serious crime, every operational purpose specified on that warrant must be necessary for one or both of these broader purposes.
	In addition, subsection (1) makes clear that the Secretary of State’s decision to issue the warrant must be approved by a Judicial Commissioner.
	Subsection (4) makes clear that an application for a bulk equipment interference warrant may only be made by one of the three intelligence services.