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UK ignoring and bypassing EU Data Directive
11 Aug 2014: posted by the editor - Human Rights, European Union, United Kingdom

On 8 April 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) found the the 2006 EU Directive on mandatory data retention was unlawful and had been so since the day it was passed. The judgment followed a critical Opinion of the Court's Advocate-General delivered on 12 December 2013.  The CJEU judgment is damning in its rejection of mass surveillance based on the retention of data on every communication by everyone resident in the whole EU. 

The judgment (emphasis added throughout) says that the data:
"taken as a whole, may allow very precise conclusions to be drawn concerning the private lives of the persons whose data has been retained, such as the habits of everyday life, permanent or temporary places of residence, daily or other
movements, the activities carried out, the social relationships of those persons and the social environments frequented by them." (para 27)
And:
"the fact that data are retained and subsequently used without the subscriber or registered user being informed is likely to generate in the minds of the persons concerned the feeling that their private lives are the subject of constant surveillance." (para 37)

Statewatch.org says that the UK is "clearly ignoring the Court's ruling by maintaining the mass surveillance of communications and extending its reach, though permanent warrants, to service providers based in the EU, USA and elsewhere. DRIPA 2014 amends RIPA 2000 but leaves untouched the power of the Foreign Secretary to sign limitless warrants for GCHQ to spy on the rest of the world under Section 8.4 of RIPA 2000."

Tags: Mass surveillance, data retention, EU, UK

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