Ministers scale down 'snooper 's charter'

Ministers have announced radically scaled down plans to give state agencies powers to access telephone, Internet and e-mail records.

The plans were dubbed the "snooper's charter" when Home Secretary David Blunkett was forced to climb down last June.

Officials had planned to allow a vast range of public bodies - including seven Whitehall departments, local councils and 11 quangos - the right to demand access to private communications records.

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

Home Office minister Bob Ainsworth revealed a new shorter list which the public have been asked to comment on before it is approved.

Only a handful of bodies - each with a serious crime-fighting role - would gain automatic power to access such sensitive data.

They are the UK Atomic Energy Constabulary, the Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

Fire authorities and NHS trusts will also get full access to investigate suspicious fires or hoax 999 calls.

Organisations named under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) can 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.

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