permitted and the minimum safeguards that are needed to meet the
standards required by the Convention in an age of digital communication.
The Applicants contend that the scheme of bulk interception and
intelligence sharing operated by the UK is incompatible with the rights to
privacy and freedom of expression guaranteed by Articles 8 and 10 of the
European Convention on Human Rights.
Lack of safeguards
7.
Further, the safeguards put in place by the UK were and are entirely
inadequate. The UK system lacks:
(1)
A clear statement on the nature of the offences which may give rise
to the surveillance at issue;
(2)
A requirement of individual reasonable suspicion;
(3)
Defined categories of people who may be subject to surveillance;
(4)
Temporal limits on the duration of surveillance;
(5)
Adequate procedures for the examination, analysis, and storage of
the data obtained;
(6)
Precautions when disseminating data to other parties;
(7)
Ex-ante independent authorisation for and ex-post effective review
of the interception and/or sharing of individuals’ communications;
and
(8)
Notification to subjects of surveillance.
Simple focus of this application
8.
Before proceeding, the Applicants wish to note that the extremely lengthy
response by the Government, making many assertions on the history and
context of the relevant domestic legislative provisions combined with
reliance on a large number of long reports, necessitates a lengthy response
from the Applicants to ensure that the Court is aware that many of the
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