On Tuesday, discovered that the UK intelligence agencies we have been challenging in court for years have at the same time been snooping on our data. As a human rights charity aiming to hold these very agencies to account, this is genuinely chilling.
The evidence came to light during a case before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the court set up to hear complaints against the UK Government鈥檚 intelligence services. Launched in 2015, our case has revolved around the collection, use and retention of huge databases containing data on millions of people, the vast majority of whom are under no suspicion of committing a crime. The data collected includes travel movements, financial records and the metadata of their telephone and internet use.
The court, which is allowed to hear evidence from the agencies in secret, has twice ruled that the agencies鈥� access to these databases has been unlawful. In 2016, it found that because the very existence of these databases had been secret and not revealed to Parliament or the public, they were 鈥渘ot in accordance with the law鈥�. Earlier this year, it also ruled that a decade鈥檚 worth of secret data capture has been unlawful, because successive foreign secretaries let the intelligence agencies themselves decide what data they could acquire from telecommunications companies.
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Imperfect solution
In the latest hearing, we learned that not only has data relating to Privacy International been unlawfully swept up in mass surveillance programmes by all three of the UK鈥檚 primary intelligence agencies 鈥� GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 鈥� but the domestic intelligence agency MI5 also unlawfully captured and read Privacy International鈥檚 private data as part of an active investigation.
Why MI5, which is charged with protecting the UK鈥檚 national security, has been spying on a human rights organisation remains unknown, and is now a matter for the UK government to review and explain. It now must also clarify what changes, if any, it will make to the UK鈥檚 legal framework to ensure its intelligence agencies aren鈥檛 able to unlawfully spy on charities working in the public interest.
Some believe that technological protections 鈥� such as the use of encrypted communications 鈥� are the only way to defend privacy in the age of mass government surveillance. These are hardly a panacea, offering imperfect solutions while at the same time giving acquiesce to unjust laws. The solution lies in a combination of better legal checks and balances as well as privacy-enhancing technology. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive.
Ultimately, what drives both of these solutions is public pressure: people can only exercise their consumer and democratic rights if they are informed. Spying on the very organisations that are committed to exposing secret, unlawful surveillance by governments and companies only further demonstrates the importance of such work.
Read more: Incognito mode: the battle for privacy in a world of face recognition
