Foreign tourists visiting Spain are being tracked via their mobile phone signals in an experiment launched by the Government this year.

It shows where they have come from and everywhere they go, including how long they stay in each place.

Data, including that from British tourists, is being collected by Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE).

While some Spanish publications have accused the Government of ‘spying’ on tourists, others have pointed out that it is no different to numerous apps that collect data from personal mobiles, including Google Maps.

INE says collecting the data will enable it to ‘roughly’ gauge the number of tourists in an area at any one time.

However, it admits that it’s an experiment and not perfect since it can only track the movement of tourists with mobiles, and if people have multiple phones they could be counted multiple times.