A kind reader provided a link to an article by the BBC warning that snooping powers given to more than 600 public bodies look set to create a small industry of private firms that will help process requests for information about who people call, the websites they visit and who they swap e-mail with. One firm, called Singlepoint, has been specifically created to act as a middleman between the bodies that want access to data and the net service providers and phone operators that hold it.

We saw an opportunity for a business or a facility that could provide secure processing for the data requests that will come out of this legislation.

Singlepoint spokesman explained that without Singlepoint it would be more difficult and costly for public authorities to request data as they would have to set up relationships with all of the UK's communication service providers. Instead, Singlepoint was setting up a system that would automatically route requests for information to relevant net or phone firms.

The Home Office estimates that up to 500,000 requests per year are made for information about who pays for a particular phone or web account. About 90% of these requests are for subscriber information. Singlepoint estimates that there could be millions of requests per year. Most of these requests are made by the police but approximately 4% are made by the many public authorities that have had new powers granted under RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act).

Other firms are starting to set themselves up as trainers for people within public bodies involved with investigations.

the Home Office was keen to get firms offering courses because the police did not have the resources to take on the training of these public body workers itself.

Bodies granted snooping powers include the Serious Fraud Office, all local authorities and councils plus other organisations such as the Charity Commission and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science.

When proposals to grant these snooping powers were first aired in mid-2002 they were greeted with alarm by privacy advocates and civil liberty groups.

A campaign co-ordinated by the FaxYourMP website prompted the government to withdraw its proposals. However, following a consultation exercise the proposals were resurrected and the powers granted in a series of statutory instruments issued in November 2003.