Big Brother Watch demands greater transparency on use of RIPA powers

Any public authority using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) should be required to publish standard information about how, when and to what outcome they use the powers, campaign group Big Brother Watch has demanded.

In its report, A legacy of suspicion, BBW called for judicial authorisation of surveillance to be extended to cover all public authorities.

It also recommended that: “Before any further surveillance legislation is considered, a comprehensive review of RIPA should be undertaken including whether a provision for individuals to be notified about RIPA surveillance once an investigation has concluded and charges are not forthcoming should be adopted.”

The report revealed that 345 local authorities in Great Britain had conducted RIPA surveillance operations in 9,607 cases in the past three years.

Kent County Council carried out 315 RIPA investigations in three years, the highest of any local authority in the country.

Other key findings from the report – which was based on freedom of information requests – were that:

  • 26 local authorities had used RIPA to spy on dog owners to see whose animals were responsible for dog fouling
  • Seven local authorities had used their powers to investigated suspected breaches of the smoking ban
  • Seven public authorities that are able to use surveillance powers under RIPA, had refused to disclose how often, for what purpose and what type of surveillance they had undertaken. They included the BBC, Ofsted, the Royal Mail and the Office for Fair Trading.
  • 13 public authorities confirmed they had undertaken RIPA investigations, including the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).  

Big Brother Watch said: “While the Coalition has changed the law to require local authorities to seek a magistrate’s warrant for surveillance, following the passage of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act public authorities remain able to initiate investigatory procedures under RIPA without judicial approval.

“Most organisations do not use RIPA powers, although legally entitled to do so. However, a number of bodies have actively used these powers during the past three years. As with local authorities, these investigations have frequently been targeted at non-serious offences far beyond the original purpose of RIPA.”

The group said it was of even greater concern that a range of organisations had refused to state if, how and why they used the powers.

“We simply do not know if they have been undertaking surveillance that is not necessary or proportionate because the information is being kept secret,” BBW said, adding that it would continue to seek the information and was appealing the refusals of its Freedom of Information requests to the Information Tribunal.

Big Brother Watch claimed that the legislative framework of surveillance did not offer proper safeguards against abuse or transparency.

“It is absurd that the regulation of the test purchase of a puppy falls under the same legislation that governs when security services can intercept communications,” it argued.

Writing in the foreword to the report, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles suggested that the Protection of Freedoms Act would ensure the public could be confident that “overzealous town hall bureaucrats do not use powers intended for terrorism or serious criminal investigations for trivial issues”.

He claimed that councils had “seriously abused and over-used such snooping powers – for matters as trivial as spying on garden centres for selling pot plants; snooping on staff for using work showers or monitoring shops for unlicensed parrots”.

The minister added that it was “simply unacceptable” for public bodies to be using RIPA “yet so vociferously trying to avoid accountability”.

Responding to the report, Cllr Mehboob Khan, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board, said:
“People quite rightly expect councils to tackle rogue traders, loan sharks and benefit fraudsters operating in their area. These criminals have been caught and prosecuted using evidence gained from surveillance. Without these powers it would be much harder, and in some cases impossible, to bring offenders to justice.”

Cllr Khan pointed out that BBW’s figures meant that on average a local authority would only use their surveillance powers less than 10 times per year. National statistics showed that council requests for communications data made up only 0.3% of all requests received, he added.

Philip Hoult