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+title: NGOs Challenge UK Government Surveillance at the European Court of Human Rights
+date: 2017-11-06 00:43:00 
+updated: 2017-11-06 07:07:16 
+author: remission
+tags: update, pressemitteilung
+
+On Tuesday 7 November, three joined cases brought by civil liberties and human rights organisations challenging UK Government surveillance will be heard in the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
+
+<!-- TEASER_END -->
+
+*Big Brother Watch and Others v UK* will be heard alongside *10 Human
+Rights Organisations and Others v UK* and the *Bureau of Investigative
+Journalism and Alice Ross v UK*, four years after the initial
+application to the ECtHR. \[1\]
+
+Big Brother Watch, English PEN, Open Rights Group and Constanze Kurz
+made their application to the Court in 2013 following Edward Snowden’s
+revelations that UK intelligence agencies were running a mass
+surveillance and bulk communications interception programme, TEMPORA, as
+well as receiving data from similar US programmes, PRISM and UPSTREAM,
+interfering with citizens’ right to privacy. \[2\]
+
+The case questions the legality of the indiscriminate surveillance of UK
+citizens and the bulk collection of their personal information and
+communications by UK intelligence agencies under the Regulation of
+Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). The UK surveillance regime under RIPA
+was untargeted, meaning that EU citizens’ personal communications and
+information was collected at random without any element of suspicion or
+evidence of wrongdoing, and this regime was effective indefinitely.
+
+The surveillance regime is being challenged on the grounds that there
+was no sufficient legal basis, no accountability, and no adequate
+oversight of these programmes, and as a result infringed citizens’
+Article 8 right to a private life.
+
+In 2014, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism made an application to
+the ECtHR, followed by ten Human Rights Organisations and others in 2015
+after they received a judgment from the UK Investigatory Powers
+Tribunal. All three cases were joined together, and the
+Court exceptionally decided that there would be a hearing.
+
+The result of these three cases has the potential to impact the current
+UK surveillance regime under the Investigatory Powers Act. This legal
+framework has already been strongly criticized by the Court of Justice
+of the European Union in *Watson*. A judgment in this case will finally
+push the UK Government to constrain these wide-ranging surveillance
+powers, implement greater judicial control and introduce greater
+protection such as notifying citizens that they have been put under
+surveillance.
+
+Daniel Carey of Deighton Pierce Glynn, solicitor for Big Brother Watch,
+Open Rights Group, English PEN and Constanze Kurz, said: “Historically,
+it has required a ruling from this Court before improvements in domestic
+law in this area are made. Edward Snowden broke that cycle by setting in
+motion last year’s Investigatory Power Act, but my clients are asking
+the Court to limit bulk interception powers in a much more meaningful
+way and to require significant improvements in how such  intrusive
+powers are controlled and reported.”
+
+Griff Ferris, Researcher at Big Brother Watch, said: “This case raises
+long-standing issues relating to the UK Government’s unwarranted
+intrusion into people’s private lives, giving the intelligence agencies
+free reign to indiscriminately intercept and monitor people’s private
+communications without evidence or suspicion. UK citizens who are not
+suspected of any wrongdoing should be able to live their lives in both
+the physical and the digital world safely and  securely without such
+Government intrusion. If the Court finds that the UK Government
+infringed UK citizens’ right to privacy, this should put further
+pressure on the Government to implement measures to ensure that its
+current surveillance regime doesn’t make the same mistakes.”
+
+Antonia Byatt, Interim Director of English PEN, said: “More than four
+years since Edward Snowden’s revelations and nearly one year since the
+Investigatory Powers Act was passed, this is a landmark hearing that
+seeks to safeguard our privacy and our right to freedom of expression.
+The UK now has the most repressive surveillance legislation of any
+western democracy, this is a vital opportunity to challenge the
+unprecedented erosion of our private lives and liberty to communicate.”
+
+Jim Killock, Executive Director of Open Rights Group, said: “Mass
+surveillance must end. Our democratic values are threatened by the fact
+of pervasive, constant state surveillance. This case gives the court the
+opportunity to rein it back, and to show the British Government that
+there are clear limits. Hoovering everything up and failing to explain
+what you are doing is not acceptable.”
+
+**Links:**
+
+\[1\] The ECtHR hearing [on 7 November
+2017](http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=hearings/calendar&c=#n1353927184398_pointer)
+
+\[2\] [privacynotprism.org.uk/](https://www.privacynotprism.org.uk/)
+
+\[3\] [British government to answer fast-track spy
+challenge](http://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2014/gchq-egmr)