| SPOTLIGHT |
The Local Government Association has urged the Home Office to reconsider its rejection of the need for councils to have powers to access communications data.
The Home Office informed the LGA of its provisional stance in December 2012, but asked for further information ahead of taking a final decision.
In a response drawn up in partnership with the National Anti-Fraud Network and the Association of Chief Trading Standards Officers, the LGA last month warned of a real risk that local authorities’ ability to take swift and effective action to protect consumers would be undermined without access to such powers.
The letter said: “We share many of the concerns of the coalition government about ensuring that access to this data respects the right of the individual to privacy, while at the same time providing enforcement agencies with the tools to protect people from exploitation.
“Councils are responsible enforcement agencies with a genuine need to access some elements of this data and we wish to work with the Government to ensure that these tools are fit and proportionate for use in the modern context.”
The LGA admitted to being disappointed that the joint committee [on the Draft Communications Data Bill] had not explicitly recommended that councils be named on the face of the legislation.
However, the Association highlighted how the committee had outlined ways in which appropriate safeguards could be put in place for councils to access the data in future.
“For instance, they specifically commended the council-led National Anti-Fraud Network as an example of expertise and recommended that ‘all local authorities and other infrequent users of communications data should be required to obtain advice from this service’ or a service modelled on it,” the LGA said.
The letter also said the Association had worked closely with the Government on the Protection of Freedoms Act to introduce a new threshold of six months' imprisonment below which an application to conduct surveillance could not be made.
“Preliminary reports from council officers suggest that this is working well alongside the need to secure magistrate’s approval and we believe it provides a current and effective model for ensuring that communications data is used for only serious offences as is intended by Home Office ministers,” it continued.
“It would therefore be good to have a conversation about what additional safeguards Ministers might want to see in place for communications data powers, such as application of a similar threshold, which would allow councils to be included in the list of agencies retaining the powers.”
The letter stressed that councils’ use of communications data powers was driven by a need to protect residents and responsible businesses.
It also contained a number of case studies of where local authorities had used communications data powers to good effect in areas such as: organised crime; protecting UK businesses; protecting people from dangerous goods; tackling tax evasion and fraud; protecting the vulnerable; identifying associates; and tracing criminals.
These cases included Operation Magpie, an investigation by Trading Standards at Cambridgeshire County Council into an organised crime group that targeted more than 100 elderly and vulnerable people.
The ringleader of the gang was subsequently given a seven-year prison sentence and two co-conspirators were jailed for five years each. Sixteen other offenders were convicted of money laundering offences.
Another case involved the biggest example of housing tenancy fraud so far investigated, with the council in question identifying 13 properties that were illegally sublet by an agency worker. The local authority was estimated to have lost £819,000, the cost of housing tenants in the private sector rather than in its housing stock.
The LGA said communications data had helped reveal the extent of the fraud and identified the whereabouts of the agency worker.
