The civil rights group Liberty has lost its latest high court challenge against surveillance laws, saying the ruling allowed the government “to spy on every one of us”.
In its challenge to parts of the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) 2016 – which critics have described as the “snooper’s charter” – the organisation argued that government surveillance practices were incompatible with human rights law.
The charity told the court that, of the multiple powers authorised by the legislation, the ability to interfere with computers, mobiles and other equipment amounted to the greatest invasion of individuals’ privacy.
In a judgment on Monday, Lord Justice Singh and Mr Justice Holgate dismissed Liberty’s claim, rejecting the argument that IPA “does not contain sufficient safeguards against the risk of abuse of power”. The judges concluded that the IPA included several “safeguards against the possible abuse of power”.
Megan Goulding, a lawyer for Liberty, said the “disappointing judgement” allowed the government to continue “to spy on every one of us, violating our rights to privacy and free expression”.
“We will challenge this judgment in the courts, and keep fighting for a targeted surveillance regime that respects our rights,” she said. “These bulk surveillance powers allow the state to hoover up the messages, calls and web history of hordes of ordinary people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing.”
In June it emerged that MI5 had lost control of its data storage operations. MI5 admitted there were “ungoverned spaces” on its computers where it did not know what it held.
The judges said on Monday: “[We] are very conscious that the recent disclosures made by the defendants about MI5’s handling procedures have caused the investigatory powers commissioner obvious concern and will cause others in society concern too.”
But they said this did not change their view that IPA was compatible with human rights law.
Goulding said: “The court recognised the seriousness of MI5’s unlawful handling of our data, which only emerged as a result of this litigation. The security services have shown that they cannot be trusted to keep our data safe and respect our rights.”
Appearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London last month, Martin Chamberlain QC, representing Liberty, argued there were “inherent dangers” in bulk hacking powers, saying the intelligence services could take “remote control of a device, for example, to turn mobile phones with cameras into recording devices … or to log keystrokes to capture passwords”.
Chamberlain warned against “the possibility of abuse of power necessarily exercised in secret, and the generally chilling effect on individuals’ communications and expression of ideas caused by the existence of such powers”.
In a written submission, Sir James Eadie QC, representing the government, argued that the powers provided by IPA struck “an appropriate balance between security and individual privacy”.
“The powers under challenge are of critical importance to, and are effective in securing, the protection of the public from a range of serious and sophisticated threats arising in the context of terrorism, hostile state activity and serious/organised crime,” he said.
