The UK may be forced to scale back its digital mass surveillance of citizens after a court ruled today that its current powers are unlawful.
The UK’s Court of Appeal ruled that the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA) allowed police officers to authorize their own access to citizens phone records and web browsing history even in the case of non-serious crimes.
According to a report from The Guardian, three appeal court judges ruled that the law did not adequately restrict access to this personal information and so was inconsistent with EU law.
DRIPA was passed into law in 2014 as emergency” legislation, with parliamentary debate restricted to just a single day of discussion.
The law paved the way for 2016’s Investigatory Powers Act, which authorized even more intrusive surveillance, and which Edward Snowden dubbed “the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy.
With DRIPA struck down as unlawful, it’s likely the government will now have to scale back parts of the Investigatory Powers Act, otherwise known as the Snoopers’ Charter, which replaced DRIPA in 2016.
Among other measures, the Snoopers’ Charter legalizes targeted hacking by the security services and requires that all ISPs keep a record of citizens’ web browsing habits for at least a year.
The case against DRIPA began in 2014, led by Labour MP (and now deputy leader) Tom Watson, and Conservative MP (and now the government’s Brexit lead), David Davis. Davis has since removed himself from the case, but in a statement Watson praised the ruling.
This legislation was flawed from the start. It was rushed through Parliament just before recess without proper parliamentary scrutiny, said Watson.
The government must now bring forward changes to the Investigatory Powers Act to ensure that hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom are innocent victims or witnesses to crime, are protected by a system of independent approval for access to communications data.
Martha Spurrier, director of human rights group Liberty who represented Watson in this case, said: Yet again a UK court has ruled the government’s extreme mass surveillance regime unlawful.
This judgment tells ministers in crystal clear terms that they are breaching the public’s human rights. The latest incarnation of the snoopers charter, the Investigatory Powers Act, must be changed.
No politician is above the law. When will the government stop bartering with judges and start drawing up a surveillance law that upholds our democratic freedoms?