The report found mistakes were made either by law enforcement agencies or communications service providers, with the majority of errors believed to relate to child abuse inquiries.
In these instances often the evidence used was an internet address which was wrongly linked to an individual.
There were six instances in which people unconnected to the investigations were visited by police and seven cases that resulted in delayed welfare checks on vulnerable individuals.
Of the 23 serious mistakes, 14 were human errors and the other nine "technical system errors".
Commissioner Sir Stanley Burnton's annual report said: "Any police action taken erroneously in such cases, such as the search of an individual's house that is unconnected to the investigation or a delayed welfare check on an individual whose life is believed to be at risk, can have a devastating impact on the individuals concerned."
Overall, 1,199 communications data errors were reported to the watchdog in 2015 - an increase of 20% on the previous year.
Of these, 86.6% were attributable to public authorities, 12.6% to communications service providers and 0.8% to other parties.
Nearly 94% of the requests were by police and law enforcement and just under 6% by the intelligence agencies.