John Wadham, director of Liberty:

"The draft RIPA order seeks to extend snooping powers beyond all justification. The list shows that - contrary to what most of might expect - it won't even be just the police that have access to people's communications records. Practically every public servant will be able to play this game.

"The Government assured people when they decided that communications service providers would be made to keep these records that only the police would have access to them in pursuit of terrorists or serious criminals. In reality, thousands of bureaucrats across the country will now be able to snoop still deeper into anyone's private information, without remotely adequate safeguards.

"All investigators should at the very least have to persuade an independent judge that they have reasonable suspicion someone is committing a crime before they are given a warrant to access these records. The present system is already too open to abuse; and allowing this extraordinary range of public authorities access makes a bad situation infinitely worse. The same authorities already have far wider powers of surveillance than most of us realise - and these too are hopelessly under-regulated.

"Within a few weeks, the European Parliament has vastly weakened the basic principles of data protection, the Cabinet Office has proposed massive data-sharing to allow more officials to snoop in our records without our knowledge or consent; and now this".