European court rules that some UK surveillance violates privacy rules
The European Court of Human Rights says UK surveillance programmes, including those exposed by Edward Snowden, violate rules that protect privacy and family life
Geneva — The European Court of Human Rights said that some UK surveillance programmes, including the bulk interception of communications exposed by whistle-blower Edward Snowden, violate rules that protect privacy and family life. The seven judges at the Strasbourg-based court said in a 5-2 ruling that such interception violated article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which also deals with the privacy of communications. There was insufficient oversight of how information in the bulk scoop of data was intercepted and filtered, and the safeguards governing the selection of "related communications data" for examination were inadequate, the judges said in a statement published Thursday following their decision. The landmark ruling addresses three applications filed between 2013 and 2015 by a group of 16 journalists, civil-liberty activists and privacy organisations after Snowden, a former US National Security Agency contractor, exposed the degree to which intelligence serv...
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