The Grand Chamber of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECtHR) is set to hear a case brought against the UK by 14 NGO’s, over the UK’s surveillance regime as revealed by the Snowden disclosures in 2013.

General counsel at Privacy International, Caroline Wilson Palow, said: “The UK Government continues to intercept enormous volumes of internet traffic flowing across its borders. And it continues to have access to similarly vast troves of information intercepted by the US Government.”

In September 2018 the NGOs, including Amnesty International, Privacy International, and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, celebrated a landmark victory at the ECtHR over the case, which was ongoing since 2013. It was ruled that the acts of the UK surveillance regime had been illegal, as they violated the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression, and had not received sufficient oversight.

However according to many of the claimants this judgement did not go far enough, as it had not ruled that bulk surveillance is never lawful. This led to the case being referred to the highest chamber of the ECtHR.

Lucy Claridge, Director of Strategic Litigation at Amnesty International said “…people’s rights to privacy and freedom of expression are not expendable commodities.” The human rights organisations are looking for a judgement which would put an complete stop to the bulk interception of communications.

The original complaint on the UK’s surveillance regime was made in 2013 by Privacy International, after being revealed through the Snowden disclosures. The complaint was made to the UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), alongside nine other NGOs who’s complaints were joined together to create the case.

In 2014, the IPT held the UK’s actions were lawful, however in 2015 ruled the UK’s access to US bulk surveillance was unlawful. It was also found that the UK government had conducted surveillance on Amnesty International and the Legal Resources Centre – two claimants in the case – and this was found to be unlawful.

Bulk surveillance, or bulk interception, by the UK government was done by infiltrating undersea fibre optic cables, which carry all communications that use the internet (including emails, phone calls and texts, and search engine queries). This is done by first capturing the signal from a cable, copying the information streaming from it into a storage space, and then separating and filtering the information, before it is stored to be analysed by human beings. It can then be distributed.

 

 

 

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Image courtesy of Karl Block on Unsplash

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