Government spying on half a million people a year

The shocking extent to which the Government, police and other public organisations snoop on members of the public was revealed by figures published by Sir Paul Kennedy, the interception of communications commissioner (ICC).

These revealed that around one in 78 adults is spied on each year and last year alone a total of 504,073 surveillance requests to phone and internet companies were made under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). This is a 44 per cent rise in requests over the past two years.

RIPA was put in place to give authorities access to communications data, such as emails and telephone calls, in order to help fight terrorism and organised crime. Although the law does not allow authorities access to the content of messages or calls they can request data such as the sender, recipient or time.

The figures from the ICC’s annual report are a vivid reminder of the warnings given in November 2006 by Richard Thomas, who retired as Information Commissioner in June. He said the UK was “sleepwalking into a surveillance state”.

Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman said: “The sheer numbers are daunting. It cannot be a justified response to the problems we face in this country that the state is spying on half a million people a year.”

Although the majority of requests were made by the police and security services, local councils have been accused of using the powers for trivial matters; including spying on people for littering and dog fouling.

The report showed that more than 1,500 requests for communications data were made by local authorities. Sir Paul however defended local authorities’ use of this law saying it could help them investigate crimes.