Digital Rights Ireland challenges EU mass surveillance law (press release)

Irish civil rights group Digital Rights Ireland (DRI) has started a High Court action against the Irish Government challenging new European and Irish laws requiring mass surveillance. DRI Chairman TJ McIntyre said:

“These laws require telephone companies and internet service providers to spy on all customers, logging their movements, their telephone calls, their emails, and their internet access, and to store that information for up to three years. This information can then be accessed without any court order or other adequate safeguard. We believe that this is a breach of fundamental rights. We have written to the Government raising our concerns but, as they have failed to take any action, we are now forced to start legal proceedings.”

“Accordingly, we have now launched a legal challenge to the Irish government’s power to pass these laws. We say that it is contrary to the Irish Constitution as well as Irish and European Data Protection laws.”

“We also challenge the claim that the European Commission and Parliament had the power to enact the Data Retention Directive. We say that this kind of mass surveillance is a breach of Human Rights, as recognised in the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights which all EU member states have endorsed.”

“If we are successful, the effect will be to undermine Data Retention laws in all EU states, not just Ireland, and to overturn the Data Retention Directive. A ruling from the European Court of Justice that Data Retention is contrary to Human Rights will be binding on all member states, their courts and the EU institutions.”

Attack on Private Life
He continued:

“These mass surveillance laws are a direct, deliberate attack on our right to have a private life, without undue interference by the government. That right is underpinned in the laws of European countries and is also explicitly stated in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Article specifies that public authorities may only interfere with this right in narrowly defined circumstances.”

“The information will be collected and stored on everyone, regardless of whether you are a criminal, a policeman, a journalis, a judge, or an ordinary citizen. Once collected, this information is wide open to misappropriation and misuse. No evidence has been produced to suggest that data retention laws will do anything to stop terrorism or organized crime.”

“We accept, of course, that law-enforcement agencies should have access to some call data. But access must be proportionate. In particular, there should be clear evidence of a need to move beyond the six months of storage which is already used for billing purposes. Neither the European Commission nor the European police forces have made any case as to why they might require years of data to be retained.”

“Data Retention, as legislated for in Ireland and mandated by the Data Retention Directive is unjustified mass surveillance. The government is deliberately recording information about innocent citizens without cause.”

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