{"id":84706,"date":"2016-12-26T12:31:33","date_gmt":"2016-12-26T12:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=84706"},"modified":"2016-12-26T12:31:33","modified_gmt":"2016-12-26T12:31:33","slug":"in-major-privacy-victory-top-eu-court-rules-against-mass-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/12\/in-major-privacy-victory-top-eu-court-rules-against-mass-surveillance\/","title":{"rendered":"In Major Privacy Victory, Top EU Court Rules against Mass Surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

The European Court of Justice. Photo: Robert B. Fishman\/AP Images<\/p><\/div>\n

21 Dec 2016 – <\/em>The European Union\u2019s top\u00a0court has severely undermined the British government\u2019s mass surveillance powers in a new ruling that could rein in police and spy agency investigations.<\/p>\n

In a judgment<\/a> handed down in Luxembourg on Wednesday [21 Dec], the European Court of Justice declared that the \u201cgeneral and indiscriminate retention\u201d of data about people\u2019s communications and locations was inconsistent with privacy rights. The court stated that the \u201chighly invasive\u201d bulk storage of private data \u201cexceeds the limits of what is strictly necessary and cannot be considered to be justified, within a democratic society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camilla Graham Wood, legal officer with the London-based group Privacy International<\/a>, hailed the ruling as a victory for civil liberties advocates. \u201cToday\u2019s judgment is a major blow against mass surveillance and an important day for privacy,\u201d she said. \u201cIt makes clear that blanket and indiscriminate retention of our digital histories \u2014 who we interact with, when and how and where \u2013 can be a very intrusive form of surveillance that needs strict safeguards against abuse and mission creep.\u201d<\/p>\n

The European court\u2019s panel of 15 judges acknowledged in their ruling that \u201cmodern investigative techniques\u201d were necessary to combat organized crime and terrorism, but said that this cannot justify \u201cthe general and indiscriminate retention of all traffic and location data.\u201d Instead, the judges stated, it is acceptable for governments to engage in the \u201ctargeted retention\u201d of data in cases involving serious crime, permitting that persons affected by any surveillance are notified after investigations are completed, and that access to the data is overseen by a judicial authority or an independent administrative authority.<\/p>\n

The case was originally brought in December 2014<\/a> by two British members of parliament, who challenged the legality of the U.K. government\u2019s Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act, which forced telecommunications companies to store records on their customers\u2019 communication for 12 months. That law has since been replaced by the Investigatory Powers Act, which was recently approved<\/a> by the British parliament and is expected soon to come into force.<\/p>\n

Though the U.K. voted to leave the European Union earlier this year, Wednesday\u2019s decision remains \u2014 at least in the short term \u2014 highly significant, and will prove to be a severe headache for British government officials. The ruling will now be forwarded to the U.K.\u2019s Court of Appeal, where judges there will consider how to apply it in the context of national law. It may result in the government being forced to make changes to controversial sections of the Investigatory Powers Act, which enable police and spy agencies to access vast amounts of data on people\u2019s internet browsing, instant messages, emails, phone calls, and social media conversations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first serious post-referendum test for our government\u2019s commitment to protecting human rights and the rule of law,\u201d said Martha Spurrier, director of U.K. human rights group Liberty<\/a>. \u201cThe U.K. may have voted to leave the EU \u2014 but we didn\u2019t vote to abandon our rights and freedoms.\u201d She added: \u201cToday\u2019s judgment upholds the rights of ordinary British people not to have their personal lives spied on without good reason or an independent warrant. The government must now make urgent changes to the Investigatory Powers Act to comply with this.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the British government\u2019s Home Office said in a statement: \u201cWe are disappointed with the judgment from the European court of justice and will be considering its potential implications. The government will be putting forward robust arguments to the court of appeal about the strength of our existing regime for communications data retention and access.\u201d<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ryan Gallagher<\/a> – \u2709ryan.gallagher@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The EU’s top court has undermined the British government’s mass surveillance powers in a new ruling that could rein in police and spy agency investigations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}