Privacy International files legal claim and calls for end to harvesting of ‘bulk personal datasets’ by UK following last week’s passing of USA Freedom Act

GCHQ, the Cheltenham-based monitoring agency, is collecting “bulk personal datasets” from millions of people’s phone and internet records using techniques now banned in the US, according to Privacy International.

In a fresh legal claim filed at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), the campaign group calls for an end to the harvesting of information about those who have no ties to terrorism and are not suspected of any crime.

The IPT is the judicial body that hears complaints about the intelligence services and surveillance by public organisations. The tribunal has received dozens of submissions in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations about interception of internet traffic by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain’s GCHQ.

The latest claim is partially aimed at highlighting a disparity between US and UK surveillance practices that has emerged, Privacy International (PI) points out, following divergent responses by legislators in Washington and Westminster.



The passing of the USA Freedom Act last week curtailed so-called “section 215” bulk collection of phone record metadata – information about who called whom, and timings, but not the content of conversations. It was a victory for the libertarian cause and a restriction of state surveillance powers.

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By contrast, UK privacy campaigners say, parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has confirmed that GCHQ is still collecting datasets relating to “a wide range of individuals, the majority of whom are unlikely to be of intelligence interest.”

The coalition government also passed the emergency Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA) last summer to preserve powers that would otherwise have been undermined by a European Court of Justice judgment.

Two prominent MPs, Labour’s Tom Watson and the Conservative David Davis, were in the London high court last week challenging the legislation’s legitimacy.

Commenting on PI’s new claim, its deputy director Eric King said: “Secretly ordering companies to hand over their records in bulk, to be data-mined at will, without independent sign-off or oversight, is a loophole in the law the size of a double-decker bus.

“That the practice started, and continues, without a legal framework in place, smacks of an agency who sees itself as above the law. How can it be that the US is so much further ahead on this issue? With the USA Freedom Act now passed, the equivalent NSA power has now been curtailed before the debate this side of the pond has even begun.

“Bulk collection of data about millions of people who have no ties to terrorism, nor are suspected of any crime, is plainly wrong. That our government admits most of those in the databases are unlikely to be of intelligence value… shows just how off-course we really are.”

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PI says bulk data sets retained by intelligence agencies may include a great variety of information, including telephone and internet records, credit reference reports, medical records, travel records, biometric details and even loyalty card schemes. Their claim also calls for the destruction of “any unlawfully obtained material”.

A YouGov poll commissioned by Amnesty International released last week showed 56% of UK adults believed that Snowden, who worked for the US National Security Agency up until 2013, should have revealed classified information exposing US and UK government monitoring activities.

GCHQ always makes a clear distinction between intrusive “mass surveillance”, which it insists it does not undertake, and “bulk interception” of electronic communications, which says is necessary in order to carry out targeted searches of data in pursuit of terrorist or criminal activity.

In response to an earlier IPT ruling earlier this year, GCHQ said: “By its nature, much of [our] work must remain secret. But we are working with the rest of government to improve public understanding about what we do and the strong legal and policy framework that underpins all our work.”