which allows the UK Intelligence Services to extract, filter, store, analyse
and/or disseminate the intercepted material (Observations, §3.29).
233.
In support of its position, the Government relies upon Uzun v Germany
(2011) 53 EHRR 24 (Observations, §3.32). In Uzun, a suspect complained
about the covert installation of a GPS device on his car and argued that
the “minimum safeguards” from the Court’s interception jurisprudence
should be applied. The Court rejected the argument. It held that the
“rather strict standards, set up and applied in the specific context of
surveillance of telecommunications…are not applicable as such to cases
such as the present one, concerning surveillance via GPS of movements in
public places and thus a measure which must be considered to interfere less
with the private life of the person concerned than the interception of his or
her telephone conversations.” (§65).
234.
The Government’s position, based on Uzun, is that where communications
are intercepted by a foreign intelligence agency, and the UK is granted
access to those communications, the “rather strict standards” the Court
has developed for interception of communications should not apply. In
doing so, the Government suggests that intelligence sharing that leads to
access to intercepted communications is more akin to cases where
movements in public places are obtained from a GPS location of a car than
to this Court’s jurisprudence on the interception of communications
(Observations, §3.34).
235.
That argument should be rejected. Just because an additional party is
involved in the interception of the communication does not lessen the
interference with privacy. Fundamentally, whether communications and
communications data are initially intercepted by the US and shared with
the UK or initially intercepted by the UK directly, the result is the same –
the UK obtains access to highly intrusive private information. Such an
intrusion is not at all analogous to obtaining public movements via GPS
91