Communications snooping act under review

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 17 Dec 2008 at 09:29

The Home Office has announced that it will conduct a review of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) early next year.

The review follows criticism of the use of RIPA by local councils, which filed 519,000 requests for personal information in 2007, a 50% increase on 2006.

Dealing directly with this criticism, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith says the Government needs to look at introducing a level of "common sense" in the code of practice governing RIPA.

She says there are clear situations when the use of RIPA is appropriate, such as "tackling the misery caused by noisy and disruptive neighbours", though she admitted it shouldn't be "used to target people for putting their bins out on the wrong day, for dog-fouling offences or to check whether paper boys are carrying sacks that are too heavy".

Smith says she will be consulting with councils over new measures that will introduce some form of oversight governing the use of RIPA, whether that's running requests through a senior executive or elected councilors.