A police force paid out £5 million to telecom companies after using ‘snooping powers’ to look at mobile phone records of suspects.

West Midlands Police used controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to intercept the data more than 234,000 times since 2008.

As a result the force had to hand over £5,193,179 to firms including Virgin Media, BSkyB, Voadafone, EE, O2 and BT, reports the Birmingham Mail.

Reported by the Birmingham Mail. You can read the full story here. 

Matthew Burgess
http://www.mattburgess.co
I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.