[desas]

It was the company who installed the bins. The City of London gave the company a contract for the bins, this tracking is something that has developed after the original contract was signed.

[keithpeter]

And apparently the City of London only found out about the tracking from the news[1]. Powerful people don't like surprises like that.

[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/12/spy_bins_scrapped_fr...