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.