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Content type: Advocacy
BackgroundThe Snowden revelations and subsequent litigation have repeatedly identified unlawful state surveillance by UK agencies. In response, the UK Parliament passed the highly controversial Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA), which authorised massive, suspicionless surveillance on a scale never seen before, with insufficient safeguards or independent oversight.Privacy International led legal challenges to this mass surveillance regime both before and after the Act became law. The Act…
Content type: News & Analysis
What happened
On 22 July 2021, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) issued a declaration on our challenge to the UK bulk communications regime finding that section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 (since repealed by the Investigatory Powers Act 2016) was incompatible with EU law human rights standards. The result of the judgment is that a decade’s worth of secret data capture has been held to be unlawful. The unlawfulness would have remained a secret but for PI’s work.
You…
Content type: Examples
A British freedom of information tribunal ruled that for national security reasons police in England and Wales may refuse to say whether they are using Stingrays, also known as IMSI-catchers, which are capable of tracking thousands of mobile phones and intercepting their calls, text messages, and other data. In 2016, the Bristol Cable found that police forces had bought hundreds of thousands of these devices disguised in public spending data by the acronym CCDC. Privacy International, which…
Content type: Examples
BT, owner of UK mobile operator EE, is in talks with the government about using its phone location and usage data to monitor whether coronavirus limitation measures such as asking the public to stay at home are working. The information EE supplies would be delayed by 12 to 24 hours, and would provide the ability to create movement maps that show patterns. The data could also feed into health services' decisions, and make it possible to send health alerts to the public in specific locations.…
Content type: News & Analysis
Today Advocate General (AG) Campos Sánchez-Bordona of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), issued his opinions (C-623/17, C-511/18 and C-512/18 and C-520/18) on how he believes the Court should rule on vital questions relating to the conditions under which security and intelligence agencies in the UK, France and Belgium could have access to communications data retained by telecommunications providers.
The AG addressed two major questions:
(1) When states seek to impose…
Content type: News & Analysis
In order to uphold the law and keep us safe, the police can seriously interfere with a range of fundamental human rights. And so transparency and public scrutiny of their actions are essential to protect against misconduct and abuse.
So why is the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) now permitted to operate in secret?
We all have the right to seek information from most public bodies – including the police – under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000. When the law was first…
Content type: Advocacy
A new Privacy International report based on an international collaborative investigation carried out by 40 NGOs in 42 countries has found alarming weaknesses in the oversight arrangements that are supposed to govern the sharing of intelligence between state intelligence agencies, including in the UK. Privacy International urges governments to enact urgent reforms and improve public understanding about the scope of intelligence sharing and the safeguards and oversight currently in place.
Content type: Advocacy
The powers set out in the Investigatory Powers Act are wide ranging, opaque and lacking in adequate safeguards. The Government have now published updated Draft Codes of Practice for certain parts of the Act. Unfortunately, the Codes do little to solve the Act’s problems. Instead, they add little transparency, occasionally expand powers, and undermine some of the limited safeguards in the Investigatory Powers Act. These Codes demand close scrutiny. The unusually short timeframe for…
Content type: Long Read
This piece was written by Ashley Gorski, who is an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, and PI legal officer Scarlet Kim and originally appeared in The Guardian here.
In recent weeks, the Hollywood film about Edward Snowden and the movement to pardon the NSA whistleblower have renewed worldwide attention on the scope and substance of government surveillance programs. In the United States, however, the debate has often been a narrow one, focused on the…
Content type: Long Read
This week, Privacy International, together with nine other international human rights NGOs, filed submissions with the European Court of Human Rights. Our case challenges the UK government’s bulk interception of internet traffic transiting fiber optic cables landing in the UK and its access to information similarly intercepted in bulk by the US government, which were revealed by the Snowden disclosures. To accompany our filing, we have produced two infographics to illustrate the…
Content type: Long Read
Privacy International’s case on Bulk Personal Datasets and Bulk Communications Data comes to a head with a four-day hearing in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal which commenced on 26 July 2016.
The litigation has brought to light significant revelations about the use of section 94 of the 1984 Telecommunications Act to obtain bulk communications data.
Large amounts of disclosure have shed new light on this hitherto secret power and explained confusing aspects of the Government’s Response to…
Content type: Press release
Privacy International General Counsel Caroline Wilson Palow said
"Today's opinion issued by the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is a serious blow to the UK's Investigatory Powers Bill (IPBill). It, hopefully, presages a strong judgment from the Court itself.
The bulk powers - what we would call mass surveillance powers - embedded throughout the IPBill go far beyond tackling serious crime. They would give a range of public bodies, not just the Police and…
Content type: Press release
A new Twitter Bot, launched today by the global privacy rights organisation Privacy International, ‘reveals’ the internet browsing history of leading politicians, as well as details of their telephone, text message, WhatsApp, and even Snapchat communications. @GCHQbot has been launched to raise the profile of the sensitivity of our internet browsing history and communications data, on the day that the Investigatory Powers Bill begins its Committee Stage in the House of Lords.
Bot: …
Content type: Press release
Today Sir Stanley Burnton, the Interception of Communications Commissioner, published a highly critical review of the use of Section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 for gathering vast amounts of our communications data in bulk. This obscure clause pre-dates the internet era, but has been used for nearly two decades for mass surveillance. Today is the first time that these powers have been criticised by an independent statutory body. IOCCO is critical of the Government's use of these…
Content type: Press release
Tomorrow, on 26 July, the main hearing will begin in Privacy International's legal challenge against MI6, MI5, and GCHQ's collection of bulk communications data and bulk personal datasets. Previously secret documents will be made public at the hearing, and Privacy International will brief attending journalists about the significance of the disclosed documents.
The hearing will include references to important documents detailing the collection of data on every citizen in the…
Content type: Press release
Harmit Kambo, Campaigns Director, Privacy International said
"The overwhelming vote by MPs last night in favour of massively intrusive new state surveillance powers represents both a failure of the democratic process and a grim watershed moment for the privacy of every one of us.
Over the course of the Bill Committee stage, Privacy International, alongside experts from academia, technology firms, the legal profession, human rights organisations, and civil liberties groups have proposed over…
Content type: Press release
Privacy International releases previously confidential correspondence between lawyers for MI5 and GCHQ and the former Interception of Communications Commissioner, highlighting problems with the relationship between the two bodies
The correspondences show a lack of meaningful oversight and restraint of UK surveillance agencies
Ahead of the vital commons vote on the Investigatory Powers Bill, we need to create a system that guarantees better oversight of surveillance powers…
Content type: News & Analysis
Another committee-led scrutiny. Another list of changes that need to be made to the Investigatory Powers Bill. This seems familiar.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights has weighed in with scrutiny of the Investigatory Powers Bill prior to the Bill’s debate and vote in the House of Commons on the 6 and 7 June. The recommendations the report contains once again raise questions about the fitness of the Bill to be passed in its current form.
The Committee identified thematic warrants - which…
Content type: News & Analysis
Thank you to those of you who joined our campaign, 'Did GCHQ Illegally Spy on You?'. If you made a claim to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) - the court that hears claims about surveillance by public bodies, including the intelligence agencies - to find out if GCHQ has illegally obtained your communications, you will have probably received a letter or email from the IPT by now. We've written a 'Frequently Asked Questions' (FAQ) to help clarify what the ruling means and how you can now…
Content type: Press release
Despite Government attempts to stop 650 claims about surveillance being investigated, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal has today ruled that the cases can be heard
However, the Tribunal is requiring the 650 claimants to submit further information demonstrating that they are "potentially at risk" of unlawful surveillance, prior to investigating their claims of unlawful spying
The Tribunal has said that people outside the UK have no legal right to find out if British…
Content type: News & Analysis
This letter originally appeared here.
Dear Home Secretary
You are fortunate that the SNP and Labour Party courageously abstained from the vote on the Investigatory Powers Bill, content with government assurances that mass surveillance of British citizens is not government policy. Mass surveillance is not, and could never be, government policy. Merely government practice.
I congratulate you on your much-quoted claim that the Investigatory Powers Bill will contain a “world-leading…
Content type: News & Analysis
“It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife”. Alanis Morissette thought that was ironic. I never thought so. I suggest a far more ironic lyric to you Alanis - "It’s like the Home Office not listening during a consultation about how it wants to listen to everything you do’. OK, it might not be the catchiest lyric, but you can’t say it’s not ironic.
Today the latest version of the Investigatory Powers Bill was published. The Government might want some credit…
Content type: Press release
Previously confidential documents published today reveal the staggering extent of UK Government surveillance that has been kept secret from the public and Parliament for the last 15 years. Revealed in a case brought by Privacy International about the use of so-called 'Bulk Personal Datasets' and a law dating back to 1984, the extracts show that the UK Government's intelligence services, GCHQ, MI5, and MI6, routinely requisition personal data from potentially thousands of public and…
Content type: Press release
Today’s report by the Joint Committee on the Investigatory Powers Bill is the third committee report that concludes that the Home Office has failed to provide a coherent surveillance framework.
The Joint Committee on the Investigatory Powers Bill today published a 198 page report following a short consultation period between November and January. Their key findings are that:
- the definitions in the bill need much work, including a meaningful and comprehensible…
Content type: News & Analysis
The problems with thematic warrants and why they should be removed from the UK Government’s Investigatory Powers Bill
We currently have the rare opportunity to scrutinise and debate the powers that law enforcement, the security and intelligence agencies and public bodies should have to interfere with our private communications, our devices and our digital lives. These powers are being enshrined and expanded upon in the draft Investigatory Powers Bill (IP Bill), currently under scrutiny by the…
Content type: News & Analysis
Internet Connection Records are a new form of communications data created by the Investigatory Powers Bill at Parts 3 and 4. They constitute an unlawful interference with privacy with the ability to provide a highly detailed record of the activities of individuals, profiling their internet habits.
Clause 62 of the Investigatory Powers Bill (“IP Bill”) permits a wide range of public authorities to collect Internet Connection Records, however throughout debates on this highly controversial new…
Content type: News & Analysis
The UK Government introduced a draft surveillance bill on Wednesday – the innocuously named 'Investigatory Powers Bill'. Trumpeted as 'world leading' by the Home Secretary, the only sense in which this is true is that other Governments around the world will now also seek a mandate for mass surveillance and hacking.
Until recently, the idea that a Government agent could hack a mobile phone and turn on its camera and microphone to bug a conversation in a room was the realm of science fiction, or…
Content type: News & Analysis
On legal reform
"RIPA, obscure since its inception, has been patched up so many times as to make it incomprehensible to all but a tiny band of initiates. A multitude of alternative powers, some of them without statutory safeguards, confuse the picture further. This state of affairs is undemocratic, unnecessary and – in the long run – intolerable." [E.S. 35]
This report is confirmation of the pressing need for wholesale reform of Britain's surveillance laws. Mr Anderson is…
Content type: News & Analysis
With powers to snoop on our communications that are unprecedented anywhere in the world, it is essential the Investigatory Powers Bill doesn't let politicians decide who is spied on.
The bill, if it is passed, aims to give the police and intelligence agencies sweeping powers to scoop up our emails, phone calls and text messages; and access details about when, where and with whom we communicate; and even hack into our computers and smartphones. At Privacy International, we have many concerns…
Content type: News & Analysis
Despite Wednesday's publication of the Investigatory Powers Bill being trailed as world leading legislation that would balance security and privacy, what the Government is actually seeking is a mandate for mass surveillance. This is a new Snoopers' Charter and we must oppose many of its most virulent elements.
The true debate on surveillance can now begin. After years of downplaying, obscuring, and denying the Snowden revelations, the Government has finally joined the conversation about the…