LONDON: Britons are a nation of spies, rifling through their partners' text messages, tapping phone conversations and even tailing loved ones with webcams and satellite navigation systems, a survey reveals.

The most favoured way of keeping tabs on a partner is checking their text messages, with more than half (53 per cent) of those questioned admitting sneaking a peek. The number shoots up to 77 per cent in the 25 to 34 age group.

The second most popular way of finding out if a partner has been a love-cheat is to read their emails – 42 per cent told the UK Undercover Survey that they had carried out such a ploy.

A small number of the 1129 people questioned, said they had even secretly recorded their partner's telephone conversations, using dictaphones or other such taping devices.

This method was the most popular with the over-55s age group, where one in 20 (5 per cent) put their hands up. This age group also included people using webcams and GSM tracking devices.

Harry Ferguson, former M16 agent, said: "Everyone has the ability to be a bit of a spy every now and again, and you don't need to have James Bond's gadgets to enter the world of espionage."

This is cache, read story here