The issuing of authorisations under section 7 of the Intelligence and Security Act is scrutinized by the Intelligence Services Commissioner. In his most recent Report of the Intelligence Services Commissioner, he gave an account of his scrutiny function and noted that:
“Consistent with the practice followed since annual reporting by the respective statutory Commissioners began, I do not propose to disclose publicly the numbers of warrants or authorisations issued to the security and intelligence agencies. That is because, it would, I believe, assist those unfriendly to the UK were they able to know the extent of the work of the Security Service, SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) and GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) in fulfilling their functions. The figures are, however of interest and I have included them in the confidential annex to this report.”