Court Rules UK Mass Spying Was Unlawfully Conducted For Nearly Two Decades
In what rights campaigners heralded as a “significant” reproach to
government overreach, a British court which oversees the nation’s
intelligence and clandestine services ruled Monday that mass
surveillance by agencies—including the bulk collection of private data
from unwitting citizens and residents—was unlawfully conducted for
nearly two decades.
Called the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the panel of judges which
provides legal oversight and hears challenges submitted against the
country’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), as well as the
clandestine services known as M15 and M16, said the surveillance regime
was “without adequate safeguards or supervision” during secret spying
operations over the course of 17 years, from 1998 to 2015. As theGuardian reports:
The tribunal said the regime
governing the collection of bulk communications data (BCD) – the who,
where, when and what of personal phone and web communications – failed
to comply with article 8 protecting the right to privacy of the European
convention of human rights (ECHR) between 1998, when it started, and 4
November 2015, when it was made public.
It added that the retention of of
bulk personal datasets (BPD) – which might include medical and tax
records, individual biographical details, commercial and financial
activities, communications and travel data – also failed to comply with
article 8 for the decade it was in operation until it was public
acknowledged in March 2015.
