Leading human rights groups in Ireland and the United Kingdom have today called for urgent reform of surveillance laws, after securing a significant victory in their case before the European Court of Human Rights.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), Liberty and British-Irish Rights Watch took their case to Strasbourg because, over a seven year period, all telephone, fax, e-mail and data communications between the UK and Ireland, including legally privileged and confidential information, were intercepted and stored en masse by an Electronic Test Facility operated by the British Ministry of Defence.
The European Court of Human Rights has found that the rules governing data interception in the United Kingdom did not “as required by the Court’s case-law, set out in a form accessible to the public any indication of the procedure to be followed for selecting for examination, sharing, storing and destroying intercepted material. The interference with the applicants’ rights under Article 8 (the right to privacy) was not, therefore, “in accordance with the law”. It follows that there has been a violation of Article 8 in this case.”
Welcoming the judgment, ICCL Director Mr Mark Kelly said:
“The Strasbourg Court has vindicated the ICCL’s belief that data “fishing expeditions” by the intelligence services will fall foul of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The judges have found that the United Kingdom’s relatively sophisticated rules on data interception have failed to prevent unlawful interference with privacy rights. This has clear implications for Ireland’s lax data interception regime, which will require a thorough overhaul in order to ensure that it meets the standards required by the European Court of Human Rights.”
TJ McIntyre, Chairman of Digital Rights Ireland and lecturer in law in University College Dublin, said that this judgment would be significant for the legal challenge to data retention currently being brought by Digital Rights Ireland in the High Court:
“This is a landmark case which casts further doubt on the legality of Ireland’s “data retention” system which tracks the telephone calls and internet use of all citizens without discrimination. It is a clear statement from the Court of Human Rights that indiscriminate surveillance will generally be incompatible with the right to privacy under the European Convention on Human Rights” Mr McIntyre said.
Alex Gask, Liberty’s Legal Officer added:
“The Court of Human Rights has rightly found that greater accessibility and accountability is required to ensure respect for the privacy of thousands of innocent people. While secret surveillance is a valuable tool, the mechanisms for intercepting our telephone calls and e-mails should be as open and accountable as possible, and should ensure proportionate use of very wide powers.”
Note to editors:
The judgment by the European Court of Human Rights in the Case of Liberty, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and British Irish Rights Watch v The United Kingdom (application no. 582443/00) was handed down on 1 July 2008.
The full text of the relevant portion of the judgment follows:
“69. In conclusion, the Court does not consider that the domestic law at the relevant time indicated with sufficient clarity, so as to provide adequate protection against abuse of power, the scope or manner of exercise of the very wide discretion conferred on the State to intercept and examine external communications. In particular, it did not, as required by the Court’s case-law, set out in a form accessible to the public any indication of the procedure to be followed for selecting for examination, sharing, storing and destroying intercepted material. The interference with the applicants’ rights under Article 8 was not, therefore, “in accordance with the law”.
It follows that there has been a violation of Article 8 in this case.”