Tracking Used For Surveillance By The Environment Agency
Vehicle Tracking has been used by the Environment Agency in the UK for some time now. They use it to track vehicles to help combat the illegal dumping of waste. It has been effective is helping the agency combat this problem, but they have now had to stop using these tactics due to concerns that they are breaking the law.
They had been advised on the rules relating to covert surveillance by the Office of Surveillance Commissioners, but it turns out that they may have been ill advised. For this reason the Environment Agency is now putting a hold on using these methods for the time being, while a legal judgement is made to ascertain whether the surveillance methods were ok to use.
This is a possible case of where tracking can be used illegally or to breach people’s privacy. The fact that they are tracking people to catch them at the illegal dumping means that it is unlikely that any major breach of human rights has been made. That said it is an example where it is easy for the authorities to over step the mark and encroach of privacy and break laws very easily.
