EE, Vodafone and Three give police mobile call records at click of a mouse

Three of the UK’s four big mobile phone networks have made customers’ call records available at the click of a mouse to police forces through automated systems.

EE, Vodafone and Three operate automated systems that hand over customer data “like a cash machine”, as one phone company employee described it. Eric King, deputy director of Privacy International, a transparency watchdog, said: “If companies are providing communications data to law enforcement on automatic pilot, it’s as good as giving police direct access [to individual phone bills].” O2, by contrast, is the only major phone network requiring staff to review all police information requests, the company said.