Amendment to the Police Act 1997 allows use of listening devices and hacking into phones and computers
The Observer reported today that an amendment to the Police Act 1997 has allowed immigration officials to secretly intercept the communications of refugees and asylum seekers for the past three years.
According to the Observer, the Home Office confirmed that the amendment had given immigration officials the power of "property interference, including interference with equipment". The Observer says this includes the power to use listening devices, including in immigration detention centre, as well as hacking into phones and computers.
A Home Office briefing document was quoted as saying the powers were "to ensure that immigration officers can deploy a full range of investigative techniques to deal effectively with all immigration crime".
According to the Independent, the briefing document revealed that the powers are available to approximately 700 Home Office staff.
Immigration minister James Brokenshire said immigration officials could only use the powers "to investigate and prevent serious crime which relates to an immigration or nationality offence."
The Observer noted, however, that critics says such powers could undermine lawyer-client confidentiality in sensitive immigration and asylum cases.
Cristal Amiss of the Black Women's Rape Action Project told the Observer: "These powers are an outrage. People in detention have the right to confidentiality, to speak privately to their lawyer and disclose often very sensitive information such as details of rape, torture, domestic violence and alleged abuse by officials. They have to be able to share private information without their phones being hacked."
Allan Hogarth, head of advocacy at Amnesty UK, told The Independent: "Migrants' privacy - and that of their friends and family - is no more fair game than anyone else's. But Parliament has been granting ever more powers to immigration officers for many years and intrusions like this are the inevitable result. This news sadly confirms what we already know about the government's relentless effort to stamp out our right to privacy."
Liberty's Silkie Carlo was quoted by the Observer as saying: "The entirely new power of routine communication interception at removal centres is a blatantly discriminatory move."