Burnely Council has become the latest council to be found misusing their surveillance powers, they have been found to be using “RIPA powers” for the investigation of a variety of offences, including dog fouling. This means that they were using covert survelliance of the local population to detect dog fouling.
While nobody likes dog fouling, is it proportional to hire low paid goons, with little to no qualifications, to monitor individuals as they go about their delay business, with the possibility of catching one or two dog walkers allowing their dogs to foul?
RIPA, the law which allows the councils to conduct this spying, was bought in at the beginning of the decade, and was designed to help combat terrorism. Burnley council have been very supportive of the legislation relating to terrorism and stated:
“Burnley Borough Council welcomes this opportunity and fully supports effective moves to strengthen legislation and policing approaches to counter the threat of terrorism.
We feel that there is an important, separate, complementary role for local councils in cooperating with the Police and the community on action to prevent violent extremism through a range of activities and community leadership. The Council is committed to seeking ways to improve this through its work as a Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder authority.”
Their response to the terrorism laws can be seen in full here, and the letter they wrote to the home office is available here
Now that we know Burnley are happy to use these more extreme powers for their own petty purposes and empire building, we have to ask if the were keen for the anti-terror purposes for the greater good, or just to allow them to collect more and more information about their electorate?
Nick Aves, Burnley Council’s resources director, said it was “quite rare” for the powers to be used in this way; but he did not say it would not be used again in this way.