Disproportionate powers of entry to business premises under the Enterprise Act 2002 (Amendment) Regulations 2006 have now been massively increased in the name of Consumer Protection.

This was passed using a Statutory Instrument,  2006 No. 3363 laid on 15/12/06, and to come into force on 8/1/07.

Written notice to a business under the SI to advise of an inspection has been reduced to 2 working days (which means that you may or not, depending on the efficiency of the Postal Service in your area) receive it in the time frame.

Alternatively, or in the case of a failure to respond to the written notice, using a JP warrant an officer of a CPC enforcer may enter premises unannounced, and, if I read this correctly on the thinnest of evidence or even a hunch.

‘An officer of a CPC enforcer who reasonably suspects that there has been, or is likely to be, a Community infringement may for any purpose relating to the functions of the CPC enforcer enter any premises to investigate whether there has been, or is likely to be, such an infringement’.

So you don’t even have to have committed an offence, every business can now fall into the category of ‘you might commit an offence’.

The ‘CPC Enforcers’ have been extended from the original Act to now include.

(a) the OFT;
(b) the Civil Aviation Authority;
(c) the Financial Services Authority;
(d) the Secretary of State for Health;
(e) the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland;
(f) the Office of Communications;
(g) the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment in Northern Ireland;
(h) every local weights and measures authority in Great Britain;
(i) the Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of the Telephone Information Services.".

An officer of a CPC enforcer may, in the exercise of his powers;

(a) observe the carrying on of a business on the premises;
(b) inspect goods or documents on the premises;
(c) require any person on the premises to produce goods or documents within such period as the officer considers to be reasonable;
(d) seize goods or documents to carry out tests on them on the premises or seize, remove and retain them to carry out tests on them elsewhere; or
(e) seize, remove and retain goods or documents which he reasonably suspects may be required as evidence of a Community infringement or a breach of a relevant enforcement measure.

The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 1998 have also been amended as part of this SI.

Also worrying is the instruction to insert in Part 4 of the Data protection Act 1998 after section 31(5) the following

‘Personal data processed by a CPC enforcer for the purpose of discharging any function conferred on such a body by or under the CPC Regulation are exempt from the subject information provisions in any case to the extent to which the application of those provisions to the data would be likely to prejudice the proper discharge of that function’.

Whilst I agree that crooked, fraudulent and scamming business need to be brought to book, I don’t believe that this kind of grey regulation, with such intrusive powers, by so many official bodies can not be good for us or our society, and further encroaches upon our civil liberties.