Surveillance Watchdog's Verdict on our Reforms to Council's 'Snooping' Powers
I wrote on here some months ago about reforms we've introduced to restrict the Council's ability to spy on local residents, and to ensure that it is accountable publicly for each and every use of the powers it has to conduct surveillance. The main features of the reforms were the restriction of the abilitiy to authorise the use of the powers to only the most senior officers (shortening the list of authorising officers considerably), and the introduction of a new requirement that every use of the powers by the Council must be reported to the public meetings of the Council's Executive four times a year. For the first time this has ensured public oversight of the Council's use of these powers, which have been dubbed a 'snooper's charter' for Councils after several instances of their excessive and unjustified use elsewhere. These have included the case of a council spying on parents incorrectly suspected of using a false address to get their child into a preferred school and numerous cases of councils spying on t
