Briefing on Privacy International Legal Case: Bulk personal datasets and bulk communications data challenge

Long Read

Post date

23rd July 2021

Additionally, in January 2020 Privacy International and UK-based NGO Liberty filed a new claim against MI5 and the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (the “Ungoverned Spaces Case”, this time, the case sought to hold MI5 and the SSHD accountable for systemic, long-term failures in the way they handle and retain millions of people’s personal data. As part of this claim, PI requested that the IPT re-opens parts of the original BPD/BCD. This aspect of the Ungoverned Spaces Case is still ongoing.

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Communications Surveillance

Intelligence Sharing

Mass Surveillance

Metadata

Our legal action

MI5 ungoverned spaces challenge

Bulk Personal Datasets & Bulk Communications Data challenge

CJEU Bulk Challenge

Our fight

Contesting Government Data and System Exploitation

Defending Democracy and Dissent

Protecting Civic Spaces

Our impact

Fighting Mass Surveillance in the Post-Snowden Era

Attachments

1. BPD-BCD Briefing and Timeline_updated Dec 2022 website.pdf

What Pi is calling for

Governments must uphold and extend the rule of law, to protect human rights as technology changes.

PI holds governments to account for their powers.

Protecting personal data during elections – the Council of Europe's new guidelines on the processing of personal data for the purposes of voter registration and authentication

in June 2024 the Council of Europe adopted its Guidelines on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data for the purposes of voter registration and authentication. PI welcomes these very comprehensive Guidelines which complement a previous set of recommendations outlining the safeguards for the Processing of Personal Data by and for Political Campaigns.

Long Read

Social media monitoring in the UK: the invisible surveillance tool increasingly deployed by government

Privacy International presents how the use of social media monitoring by governments and companies is an increasingly prevalent one, and as this article explores, largely unregulated.

Advocacy

UN Human Rights Committee urges United Kingdom to respect the right to privacy

On 3rd May, 2024, the Human Rights Committee (HRC), the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) issued its concluding observations on the eighth periodic report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Ahead of the HRC’s review of the UK, PI had made a submission highlighting key concerns in relation to the current UK communications’ surveillance regime and the proposal for its reform; the surveillance of migrants; and the surveillance of peaceful assemblies.

Long Read

Q&A: Our challenge with Liberty against MI5 and the Home Secretary (2023)

We won our case against the UK’s Security Service (MI5) and the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD)

Following on from our initial reaction, we answer some key questions about the judgement below.

Briefing on Privacy International Legal Case: Bulk personal datasets and bulk communications data challenge

Governments must uphold and extend the rule of law, to protect human rights as technology changes.

Related Content

Protecting personal data during elections – the Council of Europe's new guidelines on the processing of personal data for the purposes of voter registration and authentication

Social media monitoring in the UK: the invisible surveillance tool increasingly deployed by government

UN Human Rights Committee urges United Kingdom to respect the right to privacy

Q&A: Our challenge with Liberty against MI5 and the Home Secretary (2023)