‘UK – The most extreme surveillance powers in a democracy’
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that the UK government’s mass surveillance programme is a violation of human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights The court ruled that the surveillance by British intelligence agencies is intrusive in nature and an invasion on the right to private and family life and as has “no real safeguards” in place.
The judgment came about on the back of a campaign run by a coalition of fourteen human rights groups including, Amnesty International, Liberty, Privacy International and Big Brother Watch, who led the campaign and the case, ‘Big brother Watch and Others v. the United Kingdom’. The case looked at three different types of surveillance: the bulk interception of communication; intelligence sharing; and the obtaining of communications data from communications service providers.
Silkie Carlo, director of UK NGO Big Brother Watch said,
“Under the guise of counter-terrorism, the UK has adopted the most authoritarian surveillance regime of any Western state, corroding democracy itself and the rights of the British public. This judgment is a vital step towards protecting millions of law-abiding citizens from unjustified intrusion.”
The court ruled, by five votes to two, that the UK has been in clear violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights on several grounds.
Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life
- Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
- There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others
Article 8 outlines an individual’s, ‘Right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence’. The ‘bulk interception regime’ and the ‘regime for obtaining communications data from communications service providers’ both violated Article 10 (Freedom of Expression and information) of the European Convention as,
‘there were insufficient safeguards in respect of confidential journalistic material.’
The court suggested that the violation of Article 10 has a direct impact on free press as journalists’ communications become excessively monitored, discouraging investigative research. The director of English Pen said: “The government must now take action to guarantee our freedom to write and to read freely online.”
ARTICLE 10 -Freedom of expression
- Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
- The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary
Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden is a former US National Security Agency contractor who famously blew the whistle on US and UK intelligence services and their indiscriminate gathering of information. In 2013 he revealed that GCHQ had been secretly collecting communications sent over the internet on an industrial scale. This meant that personal information of individuals could be seen by GCHQ, even if it had no connection whatsoever to national security threats.
Examples of GCHQ’s mass interceptions included using dangerously wide search criteria or selectors such as: all traffic to and from France, all search queries on Google, all purchases on Amazon all location data, or a wide range of IP addresses.
Snowden’s investigation showed that GCHQ’s (Government Communications Headquarters) bulk interception of communications was,
‘secretly intercepting, processing and storing data about millions of people’s private communications, even when those people were of no intelligence interest.’
Rights groups in the UK felt dissatisfied that Snowden’s revelations had not been taken seriously enough to have an effect on GCHQ’s surveillance policies, and so took the case a step further to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
The ECHR said,
“Of greatest concern, however, is the absence of robust independent oversight of the selectors and search criteria used to filter intercepted communications.”
Investigatory Powers Act 2016
Just three years after the revelations of Snowden, the UK government passed an act – The Investigatory Powers Act, in an attempt to shift surveillance laws. The act changed the investigation laws in the UK, expanding the electronic surveillance powers of UK intelligence agencies and the police. The act has only been partially brought into force and has been ruled incompatible with European rights laws as it extends the government’s spying powers, permitting hacking, big data profiling and total internet surveillance.
It is also from this act that GCHQ has enforced its surveillance authority. At the time of its inception, the chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Harriet Harman, warned about the importance of further safeguards in order to protect confidential communications for journalists’ sources, MPs, and lawyers and their clients,
“the Bill must provide tougher safeguards to ensure that the Government cannot abuse its powers to undermine Parliament’s ability to hold the Government to account.”
Response
The UK government’s Home Office has responded referencing the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 as part of the reason for this current legal challenge. The Home Office went on to say that it will give “careful consideration to the court’s findings.”
In response, a now vindicated Edward Snowden said on twitter last week,
“For five long years, governments have denied that global mass surveillance violates of your rights. And for five long years, we have chased them through the doors of every court. Today, we won. Don’t thank me: thank all of those who never stopped fighting.”
UK rights groups are thankful for the victory at the ECHR but say they will continue to fight against the use of mass surveillance by the UK and other governments around the world.