Taxpayers' money spent giving council traffic wardens spy cameras

Council chiefs say they move is aimed at stopping them being attacked - but civil liberty campaigners have slammed the tactic as "a snooping tool".

Worcester City Council has also been named and shamed on a national list of local authorities which keep data the longest, with some recordings held for an entire year before being deleted.

Even official police guidelines suggest recordings should be scrapped after 31 days to avoid eroding people's liberties.

A series of Freedom of Information requests to councils in Worcestershire reveal how district councils in Worcester, Malvern, the Wyre Forest, Redditch and Bromsgrove all have body-worn spy cameras.

Worcester has the most, at 29, which are given to civil enforcement officers (CEO workers), who deal with parking problems and other issues like littering.

The city council has refused to reveal the cost but Malvern has four body-worn spy cameras costing £1,040, Redditch and Bromsgrove share four at a cost of £3,279, and the Wyre Forest has three which council chiefs say are still in the "testing stage", bought for £1,040.

All the data in Redditch and Bromsgrove is dumped after a month but in Malvern it is kept for 90 days and in Worcester, up to 12 months.

Campaign group Big Brother Watch says 54 per cent of councils use the controversial cameras nationally, which record everything within eyesight of the wearer.

Only two in 10 councils hold non-evidential data beyond 31 days, which is the guidance for police forces.

Renate Samson, from Big Brother Watch, said: "Despite repeated warnings about misuse of surveillance powers, once again councils are choosing to use powerful law enforcement tools with little consideration of privacy.

"Using body worn cameras to protect people's safety is one thing, but widespread filming of people’s behaviour in order to issue fines is simply not proportionate."

A spokesman for the city council said the cameras were bought five years ago and have helped secure four prosecutions since then.

He said: "The council only keeps the footage for longer than one month in cases where a criminal offence is suspected - for example, where the officer has been subjected to threatening or abusive behaviour. "The footage has been useful in securing convictions in the past."

He said they did a "privacy assessment" before buying the cameras and follow guidance from the national Information Commissioner’s Office.

Three months ago we revealed how a Worcester CEO wearing a camera had dished out £6,225 worth of fines to people dropping cigarette butts in just five weeks.

Amanda Smith, community services manager at Malvern Hills District Council, said "We use these cameras as a way of protecting officers, especially when lone working, and do not keep footage longer than 31 days.

"We have never issued a fixed penalty notice based on footage collected by a body-cam."

Councillor Rebecca Vale, cabinet member for operational services in the Wyre Forest, said people are "far less likely to be abusive" if they are being recorded.

Nationally 3,760 body cameras have been bought by UK councils since 2008, costing taxpayers £1.7 million.