ECHR HIGHEST BODY CONFIRMS SOME UK SURVEILLANCE PRACTICES UNLAWFUL

Tue 25 May 2021:

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the court’s highest body, announced on Tuesday its ruling on the case of several NGOs against the United Kingdom over its bulk surveillance practices, which confirmed that some of the government’s actions were unlawful and in violation of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

“In the Grand Chamber case of Big Brother Watch and Others v. the United Kingdom, the Court found that some aspects of the British bulk interception regime were contrary to the Convention,” the court said in a statement.

According to the ECHR, the case was put forward by journalists and human rights organizations concerning three interception regimes used by the UK government, including “bulk interception of communications, the receipt of intercept material from foreign governments and intelligence agencies, and the obtaining of communications data from communication service providers.”

In regards to the bulk interception practices, the court maintained that there should be “end to end safeguards” that would ensure the necessity and proportionality of the measures at each step of the process. These actions, alongside obtaining information from communication service providers, were deemed to be a violation of the law.

At the same time, the UK’s process of requesting and receiving intelligence from foreign governments was found satisfactory and in line with necessary supervision requirements.

The NGOs that were party to the lawsuit hailed the court’s judgment as “a win for privacy and freedom in the UK and beyond,” Privacy International tweeted.

The acting legal director of the organization, Ilia Siatitsa, stressed that the ruling emphasized the need for accountability on the part of intelligence services as their capabilities to access personal data pose serious risks to a democratic society.

Reacting to the verdict, Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo said it confirmed that the UK’s mass spying breached citizens’ rights to privacy and free expression for decades.

“Today, Mr Snowden’s courageous whistleblowing is vindicated as is the tireless work of Big Brother Watch and our allies in this pursuit of justice. Mr Snowden clearly deserves the protection of democratic nations across Europe for his selfless defence of human rights,” Carlo said in a statement.

The campaigner added, however, that the judges missed the opportunity to set clearer limitations and safeguards to mass surveillance, claiming that the risk is “current and real.”

Snowden himself praised the court’s ruling on Twitter, noting that the mass surveillance regime exposed in 2013 “has been repeatedly found to be a violation of both the law as written and human rights.”

“What a road we have traveled! Thank you so much to everyone who fought this case to the highest level,” he posted.

The UK government is yet to comment on the judgment issued by the ECHR.

The case was opened in 2013 following Snowden’s revelations about how the UK’s GCHQ intelligence agency was secretly intercepting, processing and indiscriminately sharing with other intelligence agencies millions of private communications of ordinary people, without a clear legal foundation or proper safeguards.

In September 2018, a lower chamber of the ECHR ruled that the UK enabling mass surveillance was unlawful and violated the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. The fresh decision by the Grand Chamber became the culmination of the long-running legal battle over the UK government’s surveillance practices.