Firemen can read your emails

FIRE authorities and ambulance services will be given automatic access to phone and internet data along with six other State agencies under a revised 'snooper's charter' unveiled today.

They will be able to access subscribers' names and addresses and details of telephone calls and e-mails made and received.

They can also get hold of mobile phone operators' data which pinpoints a user's location within a few hundred metres.

Such powers had previously been the domain only of the police, MI5, MI6, Government listening post GCHQ, Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue.

The content of conversations or e-mails will still be subject to a warrant.

New powers for a range of state agencies to use undercover agents and deploy secret surveillance were also announced by the Government.

Local councils will be among the organisations able to use spying and a 'covert human intelligence source' to investigate crimes such as vandalism and fraud.

The powers will also be available to agencies such as Jobcentres, the Postal Services Commission, the Gaming Board and the Charity Commission.

They will be able to use the powers to protect national security, detect crime and protect public health or safety.

However, they will also be able to use them 'for the purpose of assessing or collecting any tax, duty, levy or other imposition, contribution or charge payable to a government department'.

In a separate development, ministers revealed that phone companies and internet service providers will be told to keep records of every single phone call and internet visit for up to 12 months.

They threatened that if the voluntary arrangement under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act was unacceptable to the companies, the Government would make it compulsory.