I met up with a hacker called "Ghost" who specialises in both offence security (protection with data-driven attacks, rather than a firewall-style defence) and social engineering, to gain some insight into how it works.
By contrast, Starmer said that offences under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 should be prosecuted "robustly".
Mr Vaz also raised fears the ICO would be unable to deal with the scale of the case as it only employs a handful of investigators to probe data protection offences across the country.
David Smith said the regulator's new powers to issue fines of up to £500,000 for data protection offences, which came into force on 6 April 2010, will "concentrate organisations' minds on getting it right".
The councillors were angry after Galloway accused them of trying to destabilise Respect in the city by "openly conniving" with his former secretary, Aisha Ali Khan, and a Metropolitan police officer, Afiz Khan, who are soon to stand trial for data protection offences.
Ian Kerr, who had run the operation and has since died, was fined £5,000 for a data protection offence.
Our own investigation into alleged data-protection offences committed by corporate clients suspected of using the services of rogue private investigators began in August 2013.
Ian Kerr, who had run the operation under the prosaic name of the Consulting Association, was fined £5,000 for a data protection offence.
In a statement, Scotland Yard said: "Detectives from the MPS [Metropolitan police service] have this morning, 7 August, arrested a 32-year-old-man, on suspicion of committing an offence under the Protection of Harassment Act, 1997.
"This new criminal offence will provide protection to everyone.
