A mass surveillance programme by the UK government violated human rights, the European Court has ruled. It comes some-time after US whistleblower Edward Snowden disclosed British surveillance and intelligence-sharing practices.
GCHQ’s methods in carrying out bulk interception of online communications violated privacy and failed to provide sufficient surveillance safeguards, the European court of human rights (ECHR) has ruled in a test case judgment.
But the Strasbourg court found that GCHQ’s regime for sharing sensitive digital intelligence with foreign governments was not illegal. The judges considered three aspects of digital surveillance: bulk interception of communications, intelligence sharing and obtaining of communications data from communications service providers.
