THE LEVEL of surveillance carried out on residents by the council more than tripled last year, it has emerged.

Redbridge Council used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to 'spy' on residents ten times in 2009-2010, up from three times the previous year.

According to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by civil liberties pressure group Big Brother Watch, the council used surveillance to investigate two instances of anti-social behaviour, once to check whether a license business was selling alcohol to under-18s, once over a trading standards breach, and five times to check licences were being properly enforced.

The council did not release data on how many, if any, prosecutions arose from these uses of the Act, nor exactly what kind of surveillance took place.

The Act allows councils to intercept communications, use video or 'human' surveillance, or access data stored electronically which would otherwise by password-protected.

Big Brother Watch has accused councils up and down the country of abusing these powers, and said that proposals by the new coalition government to curb the scope of these powers, while welcome, does not go far enough.

According to the group, the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition has pledged that powers will be removed unless it is in the investigation of a 'serious crime', but argue that such offences should always been under the remit of the police.

Director Alex Deane said: "Now that the absurd and excessive use of RIPA surveillance has been revealed, these powers have to be taken away from councils. The coalition government plan to force councils to get warrants before snooping on us is good, but doesn’t go far enough.

"If the offence is serious enough to merit covert surveillance, then it should be in the hands of the police."

A council spokesman said: "Redbridge Council rejects the notion that it has used RIPA to “spy” on residents or that we have used these powers excessively.

"The council takes its responsibility to residents' safety and privacy very seriously and has used RIPA to ensure that shops are not selling knives and alcohol to people who are underage, to help tackle anti-social behaviour and to investigate breaches of trading standards and licensing conditions.

"RIPA powers were introduced to help tackle exactly these types of crimes that blight local residents’ lives.

"The council has used these powers just 13 times over two years, in each of these cases our goal has been to ensure the safety of our residents and improve safety in the borough not to invade the privacy of members of the public."