EIT: Brittien massavalvonta loukkasi sekä yksityisyyden suojaa että sananvapautta

Big Brother Watch and Others v. UK: EIT:n tämänpäiväinen tuomio on jaoston ratkaisu äänin 6-1 ja 5-2

The case of Big Brother Watch and Others v. the United Kingdom (applications nos. 58170/13,

In today’s Chamber judgment1 the European Court of Human Rights held, by five votes to two, that:
the bulk interception regime violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to respect for private and family life/communications) as there was insufficient oversight both of the selection of Internet bearers for interception and the filtering, search and selection of intercepted  communications for examination, and the safeguards governing the selection of “related communications data” for examination were inadequate.
In reaching this conclusion, the Court found that the operation of a bulk interception regime did not in and of itself violate the Convention, but noted that such a regime had to respect criteria set down in its case-law.
The Court also held, by six votes to one, that:

• the regime for obtaining communications data from communications service providers violated Article 8 as it was not in accordance with the law; and
• that both the bulk interception regime and the regime for obtaining communications data fromcommunications service providers violated Article 10 of the Convention as there were insufficient safeguards in respect of confidential journalistic material.

The Court unanimously rejected complaints made by the third set of applicants under Article 6
(right to a fair trial), about the domestic procedure for challenging secret surveillance measures, and
under Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination).