Investigatory Powers tribunal (IPT), an independent investigating body responsible for overseeing any breach and illegal use of intelligence services, have found that the intelligence and security agencies from the UK has unlawfully violated Article 8 that protects the right to privacy set in place by the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) for seventeen years by secretly amassing both personal and communications data of its citizens that are not of any "intelligence interest."
Privacy International, a digital rights organization, has filed a complaint back in June 2015 against the UK security service M15, intelligence agency M16, and listening post GCHQ. They challenged whether the collection, use, retention, disclosure, storage, and deletion of Bulk Personal Datasets (BPD) and Bulk Communications Data (BCD) is within the limits of the law and abides with the right to privacy. BPD is information taken from travel records, financial data, whereas BCD is basic details on telephone calls and emails without the content.
The case revealed the weak safeguards against abuse and failure of internal oversight on the use of highly sensitive database for personal reasons. Despite this, the ruling does not make it clear whether the illegal acquisition of sensitive personal data will ever be deleted.
In a press release by legal officer of Privacy International, Millie Graham Wood said:
"Today's judgment is a long overdue indictment of UK surveillance agencies riding roughshod over our democracy and secretly spying on a massive scale. There are huge risks associated with the use of bulk communications data. It facilitates the almost instantaneous cataloguing of entire populations' personal data. It is unacceptable that it is only through litigation by a charity that we have learnt the extent of these powers and how they are used. The public and Parliament deserve an explanation as to why everyone's data was collected for over a decade without oversight in place and confirmation that unlawfully obtained personal data will be destroyed."
The government says that the powers available for these agencies play an important role in protecting the UK and its citizens but nonetheless dedicated in upholding transparency and safeguarding the information these agencies possess.
This is one of the most crucial indictments against government mass surveillance following Edward Snowden's expose in 2013 where he leaked secret documents revealing that GCHQ and NSA had been spying on targets in many countries from 2008 to 2011 through phone calls and internet traffic.
