Have we Gone Too Far with Spy Cameras?

You may remember a piece we featured on Thursday, 3 April 2008 headed Spy-cams to Target Fly-tippers in which it was reported that high-tech spy cameras are to be employed by Basildon Council in the battle against fly-tipping. Council bosses have spent £12,000 on a new mobile CCTV camera capable of spotting criminals more than a mile away – in the dark.

On the 12th April , the Daily Telegraph ran a piece pointing out that last year, councils and government departments made 12,494 applications for "directed surveillance", according to figures released by the Office of the Surveillance Commissioner. This was almost double the number for the previous year and contrasted with applications from police and other law enforcement agencies that fell during the same period, to about 19,000. One local government body reportedly admitted that councils and other public bodies would soon carry out more surveillance than the police.

Councils are increasingly using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa) to investigate anything that can be classed as a criminal offence. Although the Regulation was a measure intended to address terrorism and other serious crime, it is clearly being used in ways that are, to say the least, highly questionable.

The Daily Telegraph article pointed out that Gosport borough council in Hampshire has confirmed that it is using Ripa for an undercover investigation into dog fouling. Council officers equipped with digital cameras and binoculars are spying on dog walkers. Stoke-on-Trent city council said has used Ripa to investigate "illegal building work", while several councils have put cameras in tins and piles of twigs to catch fly-tippers.

A surveillance society is one where any authorities can spy on individuals going about their lawful business in the hope of catching them committing an offence. In 2000, when Ripa was passed, only nine organisations, were allowed to use it. That number is now 792, including 474 councils. Indeed, during 2006 more than 1,000 applications a day were made to use Ripa powers. Worse still, it is not just camera surveillance that is involved, but permission for councils to obtain phone records and details of email traffic from personal computers (though not their contents) and to get details of websites individuals log on to.

There are limits to Ripa. Councils cannot use it to bug telephones, a power reserved for the police and security forces and which must be authorised by the Home Office. However, our society has surely reached the point where we must question the use of Ripa, must question the spying tactics, must ask ourselves whether we really want a Britain in which our every movement is liable to be recorded 'just in case'. Did we really vote for officially sanctioned 'Peeping Toms', a sort of unaccountable untrained secret police masquerading as council employees? Do we really want councils assuming powers that threaten our privacy in this way?

Perhaps Basildon Council should question whether £12000 for a camera capable of gathering evidence at night from the distance of a mile is really an appropriate measure for a council to deploy. If they have evidence of a particular problem in a specific area, they can advise the police. The council should consider how staff are to be trained in the use of this camera, and how can we be protected against operators using the camera to spy on legitimate, albeit private activities?