Snooping law used to spy on staff 'must be axed'

Campaigners are now calling on the Government to scrap the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) after a survey carried out by the Big Brother Watch pressure group has revealed the extent to which the legislation is being used.

The study found that the Act, which provides powers to use methods such as bugging houses and vehicles, following people and using informers, was used on average 11 times a day by councils in England, Wales and Scotland during the past two years.

Hambleton District Council in North Yorkshire was among the local authorities which have employed the Act to check on their own employees suspected of falsely claiming illness.

The Government has announced that councils' powers under the Act are to be curbed by imposing new regulations which will mean that a warrant issued by magistrates will be needed before the legislation can be used.

Approval from a local authority's chief executive is currently needed to employ the Act's powers.

But the director of Big Brother Watch, Alex Deane, maintained that the legislation should be ditched completely after his group's report, called The Grim RIPA, had shown the extent to which it was being used.

He said: "Now that the absurd and excessive use of RIPA surveillance has been revealed, these powers have to be taken away from councils.

"The coalition Government plans to force councils to get warrants before snooping on us is good, but doesn't go far enough. If the offence is serious enough to merit covert surveillance, then it should be in the hands of the police."

The 372 authorities which responded revealed they had conducted surveillance operations using the Act in 8,575 instances since April 1, 2008. A further 35 councils did not respond to Big Brother Watch's Freedom of Information requests.

The report revealed that councils in Hambleton and the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham used the Act to check on their own employees suspected of falsely claiming illness.

The leader of Hambleton

District Council, Neville Huxtable, said: "We do have a very strict and fair policy on staff sickness, and it is monitored all the time."

Other councils said they had monitored customers smoking and drinking outside a pub, and investigated the "fly tipping" of clothes outside a charity shop.

More than 12 local authorities admitted using the Act to check up on dog owners whose animals were suspected of dog fouling, with Allerdale Council in Cumbria reporting six such incidences of surveillance.

The council said the purpose of one of the investigations was to obtain evidence to see if a person was walking their dog, cleaning up after it but then "depositing poop bag in trees, grass, or on the road".

Other surveillance was carried out to see if a dog was wearing a collar and tag, with "possible photographing" being allowed in that instance. The investigations were carried out between August and November 2008.

Big Brother Watch said Newcastle-upon-Tyne was the local authority which used the Act the most often – 231 times in the space of two years.

Despite the new plans set out by the Government, the report concludes that "councils should not have these powers at all".

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