European Court: British GCHQ bulk interception violated human rights
The British intelligence service GCHQ has violated two parts of the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights ruled. Bulk interception conducted by the GCHQ was not properly authorized and not specific enough.
The Court’s ruling revolves around two articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, which, according to the Court, GCHQ has violated when deploying bulk interception via communication service providers. According to the Court, this bulk interception is not against the Treaty, but must have sufficient ‘end-to-end guarantees’. In addition, it must be assessed at each step of the process whether the bulk interception is necessary and proportional. In addition, this bulk interception must be subject to independent authorization and must be assessed independently afterwards, the Court writes.
According to the Court, this authorization is wrong. At the Government Communications Headquarters, as the intelligence service is called in full, the responsible minister gave permission for the bulk interception. However, according to the Court of Appeal, this minister is not independent of the execution of the bulk interception, which means that permission was not given correctly. A body independent of the GCHQ should have given that permission, the Court writes.
In addition, the applications for bulk interception did not specify which forms of communication would be investigated. Also, search terms linked to a specific individual, such as specific email addresses, were not previously authorized internally. According to the Court, these two points are contrary to the Treaty.
Finally, according to the Court, the GCHQ did not take sufficient account of confidential journalistic material. For example, when the intelligence agency received such material by bulk interception, by accident or otherwise, there were no safeguards to ensure that it was only analyzed after authorization from a judge or other independent body. In addition, there were no guarantees that searches for journalistic material would only be launched with the approval of a judge or other independent body.
The lawsuit was initiated by multiple parties, including the Big Brother Watch, Human Rights Watch and journalists. The Court previously ruled on this issue in 2018, but prosecutors asked the Court to look at it again. That is why this new ruling was issued by the Grand Chamber of the Court. There are few substantive differences between the two statements.
The parties went to court when Edward Snowden revealed that the British and American intelligence services were sharing captured information. The Court states that there are enough safeguards to prevent abuse of these data sharing.