SZABÓ AND VISSY v. HUNGARY JUDGMENT– SEPARATE OPINION
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expressed deep concern at the negative impact that surveillance and
interception of communications, including extraterritorial surveillance and
interception of communications, as well as the collection of personal data,
in particular when carried out on a mass scale, may have on the exercise and
enjoyment of human rights and urged States to establish or maintain
existing independent, effective domestic oversight mechanisms capable of
ensuring transparency, as appropriate, and accountability for State
surveillance of communications, their interception and the collection of
personal data.
5. More specifically, on 26 March 2014, the Human Rights Committee,
in its Concluding observations on the fourth report of the United States of
America under the ICCPR7, recommended that measures should be taken to
ensure that any interference with the right to privacy complies with the
principles of legality, proportionality and necessity regardless of the
nationality or location of the individuals whose communications are under
direct surveillance. It also insisted on the need for reform of the current
oversight system of surveillance activities to ensure its effectiveness,
including by providing for judicial involvement in the authorization or
monitoring of surveillance measures, and considering the establishment of
strong and independent oversight mandates with a view to preventing
abuses.
6. On request of the General Assembly, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), presented a report on
30 June 2014 on the right to privacy in the digital age8. The report dealt
with the protection and promotion of the right to privacy in the context of
domestic and extraterritorial surveillance and the interception of digital
communications and the collection of personal data, including on a mass
scale. Concerned with media revelations suggesting that the National
Security Agency in the United States of America and the General
Communications Headquarters in the United Kingdom had developed
technologies allowing access to much global internet traffic, calling records
in the United States, individuals’ electronic address books and huge
volumes of other digital communications content and that these
technologies had been deployed through a transnational network comprising
strategic intelligence relationships between Governments, regulatory control
of private companies and commercial contracts, the UNHCHR underscored
that, other than the right to privacy, the rights to freedom of opinion and
expression, and to seek, receive and impart information, to freedom of
peaceful assembly and association and to family life may also be affected by
mass surveillance, the interception of digital communications and the
7
Human Rights Committee Concluding Observations on the 4th USA report,
CCPR/C/USA/CO/4, 26 March 2014, para. 22(d).
8
A/HRC/27/37.