Revealed: Cleveland Police Paid Telecom Companies Almost £2m for Phone Data in Five Years

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Its been found that Cleveland Police have spent almost two million pounds Accessing Mobile Phone Records

Freedom of Information Request Lifts the Lid on Cleveland Police's Spending on Mobile Phone Data Investigations...

16th March 2026

Police Officers on Teesside have spent almost Two Million Pounds obtaining mobile phone and telecommunications data during criminal investigations, new figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 reveal.

The figures, released by Cleveland Police following a Freedom of Information request by a member of the public, reveal how much the force has paid telecommunications companies for investigative services including call record analysis, customer information and mobile device location data.

Spending breakdown

According to the FOI response, Cleveland Police paid telecommunications providers the following amounts over the last five financial years:

2021–22: £563,211.31
2022–23: £153,165.44
2023–24: £343,909.86
2024–25: £874,157.77
2025–26 (to date): £14,995.01

In total, the figures show the force with no public confidence has spent £1,949,439.39 on telecommunications data services since 2021. The spending then peaked in 2024–25, when Cleveland Police paid more than £874,000, the highest figure recorded in the data.

What the police are actually buying

Despite the headline figures, the payments don't mean telecom companies are providing the contents of calls or messages. Instead, the costs largely relate to the administrative fees charged by telecom providers when police lawfully request communications data as part of criminal investigations.

This type of data can include:

Subscriber details identifying who owns a phone number
Call data records, showing numbers dialled and call duration
Mobile phone location data, indicating where a device connected to cell towers
Internet connection records

Investigators often use this information to place suspects near crime scenes, identify associates or track the movement of devices linked to criminal activity.

The law behind the requests

Police access to telecommunications data is governed by the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. The legislation allows police and other 'authorities' to obtain communications data — but not the actual content of messages or phone calls — without a warrant, & provided strict legal tests are met.

Requests must be shown to be necessary and proportionate, typically for purposes such as, the prevention or detecting crime, protecting public safety & the safeguarding of national security. They must also be authorised internally by specially trained officers or through independent approval processes.

Oversight of police powers

Use of these powers is said to be monitored nationally by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office, who audit how police forces across the country access communications data. The watchdog is said to be responsible for ensuring the powers are used lawfully and that investigators only obtain data where there is a clear operational need.

Digital evidence increasingly central to investigations

Its claimed the increase in spending is due to the increasing use of technology used being used in sophisticated & complex crimes.

The figures highlight how modern policing has become increasingly reliant on digital evidence. With smartphones now central to everyday life, communications data can help investigators map relationships between suspects, confirm timelines and track movements linked to serious offences.

However, the scale of spending also reflects the growing complexity of digital investigations and the charges telecom companies are permitted to levy for retrieving and processing the data.

Teesside's already seen how communications data can play a decisive role in major criminal investigations. During the prosecution of John Winky Watson, investigators relied heavily on mobile phone analysis to build their case. Detectives examined call records, handset identifiers and mobile phone-site location data obtained from telecommunications providers to map communications between Watson and individuals alleged to be involved in organised crime. By analysing when phones were used, who they contacted and where the devices were connecting to the network, police said they were able to reconstruct patterns of contact and movements that prosecutors argued linked Watson to key figures within a wider criminal network.

The retreval of such data eventually led to the conviction of a teesside man where the lead investigator was then sacked by Cleveland Police for Gross Misconduct.

However, during the court proceedings defence barristers sought to cast doubt on how conclusive the telecommunications evidence really was. They told jurors that mobile phone data does not always pinpoint a person’s exact location, explaining that devices can connect to different cell towers depending on signal strength, network congestion or environmental factors. Defence lawyers also argued that phone records alone cannot prove who was physically using a handset at a given time, suggesting that the data should be treated with caution when drawing conclusions about a person’s movements or associations, with the lead investigator of the case eventually being sacked from Cleveland Police, further casting doubts not only on the mobile phone evidence supplied to the court, but the conviction as a whole.