Town halls resort to spy tactics

Published on Saturday 22 March 2008 18:46

SURVEILLANCE methods pioneered by MI5 are now being used dozens of times every year by Scottish council staff to snoop on rogue traders, antisocial neighbours and bill posters.

At least 274 operations involving 308 suspects have been ordered by town-hall workers in the past five years, all of them involving phone record checks or video monitoring, according to figures obtained by Scotland on Sunday.

The spying sessions have to be authorised by a senior official and have resulted in major successes, including the conviction of a loan shark who was charging 'customers' an interest rate of 11,000,000%.

But civil rights organisations last night expressed concern at the trend, warning it was contributing to a "surveillance society" and might be open to abuse.

Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), a council can apply for individuals' phone records or observe their movements if it believes they are breaking the law.

Scotland on Sunday used freedom of information legislation to ask all of the country's councils for details of applications to conduct surveillance under RIPA rules. We can reveal that:

&#149 Falkirk Council is among the biggest user of secret surveillance, mounting 133 operations in three years. "Directed surveillance" in connection with noisy neighbours and other antisocial activities was used 105 times. Surveillance was mounted 15 times in cases of fly-tipping, six times to combat sale of fireworks to children and officials checked ownership of telephone numbers on seven occasions.

&#149 Glasgow mounted 128 secret surveillance operations over the same period: 59 to check phone records and 69 to conduct directed surveillance.

&#149 Stirling Council has made five RIPA applications in the past four years, all related to trading standards inquiries.

&#149 West Lothian Council made eight phone-related inquiries.

&#149 Highland Council said it had made a "few applications" for telephone details in connection with illegal car deals.

One of the most high-profile cases involved the prosecution of a Glasgow loan shark in August 2006. Gerard Law, 56, was arrested after a three-month, undercover operation centring on a pub in the south side of the city where he operated.

Glasgow Sheriff Court heard he charged interest rates of up to 11,000,000% and that many of his victims were on income support, had drink-related problems or were mentally ill.

A senior council insider said the laws had been a major boost for local authorities. He added: "This has allowed us to use methods which previously were out of reach to us and it has already had a major impact on all sorts of illegal activity.

"One of the biggest areas has been rogue advertisers selling goods which are either defective or simply do not exist. By employing RIPA, we can pull records to prove ownership of telephones which appear in adverts and which prove a direct link between the individual and the scam."

RIPA does not allow councils to carry out "intrusive surveillance" – involving the planting of a listening device – or to tap phones or obtain transcripts of actual conversations, nor can they intercept texts or e-mails.

Councils must have a trained officer responsible for granting and maintaining RIPA applications, and these have to be checked regularly by the Office of Surveillance Commissioners, which was set up especially to monitor the use of the legislation.

But despite the regulations, some feel that the legislation is too powerful.

Among the critics is Michael Parker, of the No2ID campaign, who said: "RIPA was not a well-thought-out document. It was highly controversial from the outset. It is now being much more widely used and there has been a real rise in the applications made by local authorities for all sorts of reasons."

Tony Bunyan, of Statewatch, a group which monitors the use of the government's surveillance powers, said he believed the actual figures used were much higher than the official ones given.

He added: "The new method of issuing warrants and changes to them is said to make life easier for officials but, at the same time, it hides from public view the true extent of surveillance."

RIPA is more commonly associated with police and HM Customs and Excise operations and it has helped to bring to justice several high-profile criminals, including drugs kingpins Terry Adams and Abdullah Baybasin.