Home Office plans, abandoned by David Blunkett last month, for public bodies to have access to the email and mobile phone records of individuals have received surprise support from the independent information commissioner.

Giving evidence to the Commons public administration committee, Elizabeth France said she did not share the concerns of some opponents of the plans, which were labelled a "snooper's charter" by critics after they were revealed earlier this year.

The government had planned to give seven Whitehall departments, all local authorities and other public bodies, such as the Food Standards Agency, the right to access the records of emails and phone calls for any individual.

The bodies would have been able to compel internet and telephone companies to provide information on who emails were sent to and at what time, along with the times and recipients of phone calls and the location from which they were made. No court order would be required, though the actual content of the email or phone call would not be revealed.

But a public outcry at the plans forced Blunkett to put the statutory instrument on hold indefinitely, saying he wanted to consult more widely.

Now the plans have received support from the information commissioner, the watchdog responsible for overseeing the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Elizabeth France, who has previously spoken out on issues ranging from the sale of details from the electoral register to the consequences for privacy of post-September 11 legislation, said she had deliberately not joined in the chorus of condemnation.

She said she wasn't consulted on the draft statutory instrument, but hadn't chosen to comment either.

"There really is very complex law here, and though I was delighted to see a public response because of the anxieties of breaches of privacy, you will notice that we did not on this occasion join in in that criticism," France told MPs.

She said that the government had already rejected her main criticism - that requests for information should be subject to judicial rather than administrative approval - when it passed the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA).

But France said Blunkett's plans to extend the list of bodies that could request the information were not a major threat to privacy.

"The point you have to bear in mind is these are bodies who have a regulatory role, and in that role have always had to have this access, and what its doing is making this transparent, putting it on a statutory basis, allowing you to look at and criticise that list.

"And from my point of view the important part, which has perhaps been missed in the criticism, is that the access is subject to a RIPA code on which we were consulted," she said.

The commissioner said that the plan was "not something which I have the same concern about as some other areas where I'm very concerned still".

She cited other concerns about legislation allowing information to be obtained for national security purposes but "where we are concerned about what might be done with it after it has been obtained for national security purposes".

"Those things are far more worrying to me, far more important to me, that the list of bodies who have a regulatory function and who can only exercise the ability to use the RIPA powers subject to a code of practice on which I have been consulted."