Northampton council, which did not implement the Act during the past 12 months, said that it had used the legislation on five previous occasions to tackle dog fouling. Councils have used the RIPA to recruit children for surveillance operations. Dudley and County Durham exploited the Act to send children into shops with secret video and audio equipment to see whether they could buy cigarettes and alcohol. Officials in Durham have mounted 60 RIPA investigations against these kinds of businesses in the past 12 months.