It seems the Snoopers’ Charter has yet to snoop, due to EU ruling that it is unlawful

Last Updated: February 24, 2017By

The home office has admitted … that it has put on ice its plans for the hoovering up of Brits’ Web history under the freshly passed Investigatory Powers law in light of a recent ruling from Europe’s highest court—despite face-saving assurances that it had “contingencies” in place.

“The European Court of Justice handed down a judgment relating to the UK’s communications data regime in December. The matter must now be considered by the domestic courts and the consultation on the communications data code of practice has been deferred until this has taken place,” a spokesperson confirmed … on Friday.

A public consultation on the various draft codes of practice required to accompany the Investigatory Powers Act, colloquially known as the Snoopers’ Charter, were published with a glaring omission: the blueprint for the home office’s communications data code wasn’t among the cache of documents released by Whitehall officials.

So-called Internet Connection Records are yet to be captured by CSPs as required under the new law. It seemed clear that the home office had put implementation of those provisions on ice, following the recent ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union on the “general and indiscriminate” retention of citizens’ communications data.

In late December, the CJEU found that the UK’s controversial and sweeping powers on data retention were unlawful in all cases, with the exception of serious crime. The judgment came after then Tory backbencher and privacy campaigner David Davis—who is now prime minister Theresa May’s Brexiter-in-chief—and Labour MP Tom Watson challenged the now-expired Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA) that was rammed through parliament in 2014, in response to the EU’s Data Retention Directive being ripped up.

The home office said at the time of the CJEU ruling that it would appeal against the decision, however, it recently [said] it was still waiting for an official date from the court.

Source: UK forced to derail Snoopers’ Charter blanket data slurp after EU ruling | Ars Technica UK

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4 Comments

  1. Nick February 25, 2017 at 12:36 am - Reply

    The public need to understand that while the UK is in the EU then this country must abide by the rules.

    Once the UK leaves the EU then the UK will be able to do whatever it wishes to do so to the detriment of the people

    A small fact which was overlooked by those who voted for brexit who did not in the main ever consider this type of unlawfulness

  2. Barry Davies February 25, 2017 at 11:02 am - Reply

    So the ECJ without an eu law on which to base its decision has said that we can’t use a method of picking up possible terrorists then.

    • Mike Sivier February 25, 2017 at 2:27 pm - Reply

      No, it ruled that the methods were allowed for the most serious offences.

  3. Joan Edington February 25, 2017 at 12:37 pm - Reply

    A brief respite for a couple of years then off they go again.

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