Now there are spy cameras at rubbish tips

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The sophisticated CCTV systems are capable of reading and storing car number plates to identify who is using the dump, how often, and what they are disposing of.

But human rights groups condemned the surveillance as an 'unjustifiable' way of tracking people's movements.

The Big Brother-style tactics come as the Government puts pressure on local councils to cut the amount of rubbish sent to landfill sites. But the fear is that extra surveillance will only lead to more illegal fly-tipping.

The Mail on Sunday has already exposed the electronic 'bugs' secretly planted in hundreds of thousands of household wheelie bins.

Now sophisticated internet-controlled cameras are being installed at waste sites across the country. Officially they are to improve security, but council chiefs admit they will also monitor who is visiting the tips.

Several councils also say they will use camera evidence to mount prosecutions - raising fears more householders will be taken to court over what they throw away.

Cameras have been installed in Buckinghamshire, Croydon, Somerset, Dundee and Hertfordshire, and more councils are planning to follow suit after the £80million-a-year Waste and Resources Action Programme quango suggested they use CCTV to 'check vehicles visiting <\[>dumps] repeatedly'.

In Hertfordshire about 30 cameras have been installed at dumps, allowing council officials to check vehicle registration plates.

The county's assistant waste manager Mark Simpkins told a trade magazine: "The monitoring systems are invaluable. We use them to analyse...who is using the centre, what is being thrown away and how often." But last night his boss John Wood dismissed privacy concerns, saying: "I have not made the connection between our household waste sites and the wider debate about Big Brother."

However, local councillor Pat Whittaker said: "We have been campaigning for CCTV to guard against street robberies and anti-social behaviour - we do not need it at the local tip. These Big Brother tactics might discourage people from taking their rubbish for proper disposal."

Buckinghamshire and Somerset and County Councils have also installed number plate recognition systems at their dumps. Buckinghamshire council documents admit: "This may lead to investigation and possibly prosecution'.

Cameras have been imposed after the Government last year introduced a penalty of £150 a tonne on local authorities that dump too much waste in landfill sites.

Last night, Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, said: "CCTV should only be used to protect high security installations - not to monitor a dump.

"This whole area is very poorly regulated. When you install an automatic number plate recognition system you are tracking people's movements.

"You need proper justification before you track people. I don't see how it is proportionate to use that kind of surveillance in the context of a recycling centre."