(Bloomberg) -- The U.K.’s bulk interception of its own citizens’ communications in the wake of revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden violated their privacy laws, Europe’s human-rights tribunal ruled.
The U.K. government’s program “had been authorized by the Secretary of State, and not by a body independent of the executive,” that lacked the “end-to-end safeguards,” to narrow the scope of the data being intercepted, the European Court of Human Rights said in a decision published Tuesday.
The decision from the ECHR’s Grand Chamber reiterated much of a decision from its own lower court in 2018. Significantly, however, the ECHR’s Grand Chamber ruled by 12 votes to 5, that there had been no violation of privacy with regards to the U.K.’s regime for requesting intercepted material from foreign governments and intelligence agencies.
Judgments from the court, unlike the European Union’s Court of Justice, are nonbinding but can pressure governments to observe human rights laws.
Snowden became a household name and a hero to many in 2013 when he leaked highly classified information from U.S. agencies’ surveillance programs. He worked with journalists to reveal the government’s hacking of private internet systems and its widespread spying on allies as well as the U.S.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
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