On Monday, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a special court that handles complaints related to British spy agencies, found that access to the datasets had not been subject to sufficient supervision through a 17-year period between 1998 and November 2015. The tribunal said that due to “failings in the system of oversight” the surveillance regime had violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to privacy. [...]
While the tribunal found that the mass collection of data lacked adequate oversight, it did not rule that the surveillance itself was illegal. The judgment found in favor of the government on that front, stating that the use of the Telecommunications Act to harvest the bulk datasets was lawful. [...]
According to documents that were released earlier this year, the bulk datasets can cover a wide variety of information, potentially revealing details such as people’s political opinions, religious beliefs, union affiliation, physical or mental health status, sexual preferences, biometric data, and spending habits. They may also contain data revealing legally privileged information and journalists’ confidential sources. And the spy agencies have acknowledged that “medical data may appear” in some of the data troves, too, though they claim they do not explicitly harvest people’s medical records.
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