Thread by @MylesJackman

THREAD: In a landmark Judgment today, the European Court of Human Rights declared that the UK Surveillance-State's data collection regime violated citizens' privacy and human rights.

Details summarised in the Court's (non-binding) press release in the picture below.

The full Judgement of the Court is available to read here: hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#_Toc524359…
In printed form it is 204 pages long and looks like this:

For a more user friendly read, the Guardian article "spies breached right to privacy in programme revealed by Edward Snowden, judges say" by @owenbowcott is excellent: theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/s…

"Isn’t it important that States are able to carry out secret surveillance in
order to fight against terrorism?"

(Also taken from a (non-binding) Court press release, which can be found here: echr.coe.int/Documents/Pres…)

For the purposes of clarity: the Judgment is a binding legal document; whereas the press releases are merely explanatory and therefore cannot be used in Court in the place of the actual Judgment. Hence my use of the expression "non-binding" in relation to the press releases.

Here's a response from @OpenRightsGroup, @bbw1984, @englishpen et al:
openrightsgroup.org/press/releases…

“Since we brought this case in 2013, the UK has actually increased its powers to indiscriminately surveil our communications whether or not we are suspected of any criminal activity".

So what does all this mean?

According to @privacyint's counsel Caroline Wilson Palow:

"The judgment rightly recognises that collecting communications data - the who, what, and where of our communications - is as intrusive as collecting the content".

According to the Court there are six minimum safeguards which all State interception regimes must have:

1) The nature of offences which may give rise to an interception order;
2) A definition of the categories of people liable to have their
communications intercepted;

3) A limit on the duration of interception;
4) The procedure to be followed
for examining, using and storing the data obtained;
5) The precautions to be taken when
communicating the data to other parties;

6) And the circumstances in which intercepted data may or
must be erased or destroyed.

According to wonder-lawyer @danieljcarey:

"The UK’s laws and surveillance practices have failed" and that the ECHR has showed the government it does not have “a free hand” to spy on its citizens:

independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

Sky's tech correspondent @rowlsmanthorpe cuts to the heart of the matter:

"While some activists may expect the court to outlaw all bulk interception, the court seems to say the PRINCIPLE is okay - it's the government's PRACTICE which was illegal."

news.sky.com/story/govt-mas…

According to LSE privacy specialist @PaulbernalUK:

"There should at least be a clause by which authorities would have to prove that the information they hold is valuable, and if not, they would have to get rid of it.”

wired.co.uk/article/uk-mas…