Surveillance powers designed to track terrorists are being deployed by councils to crack down on littering, dog fouling and planning law breaches, a survey reveals.

Its findings expose the vast scale of Big Brother spying by town halls and brought urgent demands for "root and branch" reforms to curb the fast-growing snooping culture.

Some councils have used the sweeping powers granted by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) more than 100 times in the last year to follow and watch residents or monitor their calls - often while dealing with the most minor of suspected offences.

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Their activities emerged weeks after the Daily Mail revealed Poole council in Dorset had spied on a family because it wrongly suspected the parents of abusing rules on school catchment areas.

Computer programmer Tim Joyce, 37, Jenny Paton, 39, and their three daughters were subject to an extraordinary operation which saw them tailed round the clock by officials who described the family car as a "target vehicle".

The couple discovered they had been under surveillance for three weeks only when called to a meeting with council officials.

According to the survey, they may not have been alone in being watched over such minor matters.

Full article here.