The UK government used its bulk collection powers, including sweeping up details on ordinary citizens’ internet usage, illegally for over a decade, according to privacy campaigners.
On Monday, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), a court tasked with keeping tabs on the country’s surveillance powers, highlighted the intense veil of secrecy that has formed around the UK’s use of bulk powers, and the lack of oversight around those powers, in a written judgment. The judgment comes when the country is just preparing for a huge overhaul inits surveillance legislation, via the Investigatory Powers Bill, which is likely to soon become law.
So-called Bulk Communications Data (BCD), which concerns metadata of both telephone and internet use, is collected by GCHQ and MI5. Bulk Personal Datasets (BPD) meanwhile, are huge archives of biographical details, financial information, travel documents, as well as communications, most of which concern people of no intelligence interest.
This latest judgement addresses those two powers. For both, the IPT writes that UK intelligence and security agencies failed to comply with European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) principles before 2015.
According to the IPT, even the security and intelligence agencies were concerned about the public’s absence of knowledge around BPD.
“In any event it seems difficult to conclude that the use of BCD was foreseeable by the public, when it was not explained to Parliament,” the judgement continues.
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