Police would be given greater powers to conduct surveillance operations on people suspected of crimes such as burglary and vehicle theft under plans the Conservative Party will announce today.
Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, will pledge to amend the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act so that police no longer need to secure authorisation to conduct surveillance on those suspected of non-terrorist offences.
The changes would mean that the police would automatically be able to:
· Use covert video or listening devices in premises or vehicles.
· Watch premises to identify or arrest suspects.
· Conduct visual surveillance of public locations.
· Patrol, in uniform or plain clothes.
· Use thermal imaging and X-ray technology.
· Conduct surveillance using visible CCTV cameras.
In his statement, Grieve will say it is time to amend the rules governing surveillance because they place a "disproportionate burden" on police trying to investigate non-terrorist crimes. A review by the Association of Chief Police Officers of the act, which is designed to ensure that the invasion into people's privacy is in proportion to the crime, found that police often spend hours filling out forms for relatively minor surveillance operations. The review found that it takes an average of five hours to complete the forms for what is known as directed surveillance authorisation.
The Tories claimed that one police officer spent 13.5 hours filling out forms to follow a burglar with three previous convictions.
Grieve said: "It is not right that we charge our police with combating crime and disorder and then tie their hands behind their backs in the name of Whitehall bureaucracy. The Conservative party believes the police should be given both the resources to do their job and the freedom to use them. Revising the act's framework so that authorisation - and all the paperwork that goes with it - is not required for basic police work is just one way the party will cut red tape to free more police onto our streets."
The Tories denied that the revisions would pave the way for unreasonable intrusion into people's privacy, which was what the act was designed to prevent. It said that most of the surveillance operations that would be affected by the rule changes could not "reasonably" be seen as interfering with people's privacy. Where privacy may be invaded - such as when covert audio or video devices were used - the revisions would ensure that people who were lawfully on the premises or vehicle involved would not be affected.
One Tory said: "This isn't about being soft or tough. This is just common sense." The announcement by Grieve comes after Sir Simon Milton, chair of the Local Government Association and adviser to London mayor Boris Johnson, instructed councils to stop using the act to spy on people over "trivial matters" such as dog fouling and litter offences. Grieve will say he agrees with Milton.