166
BIG BROTHER WATCH AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT
acquisition would interfere with their Article 8 rights. As such, the Court
considers that there is no basis upon which it could find a violation of
Article 8 of the Convention.
C. The Chapter II regime
450. The applicants in the second of the joined cases complained that the
regime for the acquisition of communications data under Chapter II of RIPA
was incompatible with their rights under Article 8 of the Convention.
1. Admissibility
451. In both their application to the Court and their initial observations,
the applicants in the second of the joined cases incorrectly referred to the
Chapter II regime as a regime for the interception of communications data.
The Court observes, however, that it is not an interception regime, but rather
permits certain public authorities to acquire communications data from
Communications Service Providers (“CSPs”). In view of the “fundamental
legal misunderstanding” upon which the complaint was originally founded,
the Government submitted that the applicants have put forward no factual
basis whatsoever for concluding that their communications were acquired in
this way, and that they did not contend that they had been affected, either
directly or indirectly, by the regime. The Government further argued that
neither of the two conditions identified by the Court in Roman Zakharov
(cited above, § 171) were satisfied in respect of the Chapter II regime: the
applicants did not belong to a group “targeted” by the contested legislation,
and they had available to them an effective domestic remedy. Consequently,
they could not claim to be victims of the alleged violation within the
meaning of Article 34 of the Convention.
452. The applicants, on the other hand, submitted that they were entitled
to bring the present complaint since they could possibly have been affected
by the impugned legislation and no effective remedy was available at the
domestic level.
453. In assessing victim status the Court is predominantly concerned
with whether an effective remedy existed which permitted a person who
suspected that he or she was subject to secret surveillance to challenge that
surveillance (see Roman Zakharov, cited above, § 171). In the present case,
although the Court accepted that there existed special circumstances
absolving the applicants from the requirement that they first bring their
complaints to the IPT (see paragraph 268 above), it nevertheless found that
the IPT was an effective remedy, available in theory and practice, which
was capable of offering redress to applicants complaining of both specific
incidences of surveillance and the general Convention compliance of
surveillance regimes (see paragraphs 250-266 above). Consequently, the
applicants can only claim to be “victims” on account of the mere existence