CITY of York Council said today it had never tapped anyone's phone - but revealed that it did seek to obtain confidential personal information about people on five occasions last year.

It said that trading standards staff had been authorised by certain senior officers to access "subscriber information," such as a person's account and payment details or subscription information about their email and internet accounts.

It said such actions could only be authorised for one single purpose - the prevention of crime.

The authority was responding to reports that, according to the Interception of Communications Commissioner, 474 local authorities were able to tap phones and 122 used that power in the last nine months of 2006. Such powers were said to have been used to identify rogue traders, fly-tippers and housing benefit cheats.

But a York council spokeswoman said that all individuals had a right under the Human Rights Act to protection from state intervention in their privacy and family life, and local authorities therefore could not tap phones, read private emails, open letters, or do anything else to gain access to communications without the consent of one or both of the people communicating.

She said they also could not gain access to so-called "traffic data," for example anything identifying the sender or recipient of a message, the address on a letter in transit or the location of a mobile phone.

"However, local authorities can access service use information, such as itemised telephone call records, itemised timing and duration of calls, connection/reconnection data and records of postal items." She said they could also access subscriber information, such as account information and payment details, addresses for installing and billing, subscription information for email and internet accounts, and abstract personal records, such as sign-up data.

"This can only be done for a single purpose - that of crime prevention. The whole process is governed by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and its Codes of Practice, which require authorisation by certain senior officers. In 2007, five such authorisations were made by City of York Council, all for subscriber information, and all in respect of trading standards offences. There were none in 2006."