Summary: UK spy agencies have been involved in secretive mass surveillance of UK citizens that are innocent for many years.
Privacy International, a privacy campaign group, has acquired information in a legal challenge of the UK security agencies data-harvesting practices that show the extent that spies have secretly and systematically collected loads of data on UK citizens for the past 15 years. These citizens may or may not be involved in crime.
Read Privacy Board Found No Illegal Activity in Surveillance Program to learn more.
The load of 46 documents involve the policies, procedures, and guidance for UK state investigatory powers or Bulk Personal Datasets and Section 94 directions for GCHQ, MI5, and MI6. One of the documents that deals with security and intelligence agency policy suggests that agencies understand that most of the data collected contains “personal data about a wide range of individuals, the majority of whom are not of direct intelligence interest.”
The document from February 2015 warns staff to be prepared for “more onerous authorization processes, as well as enhanced external oversight” due to government changes. It adds, “At the very least we should expect increased and significant public interest and debate.”
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The UK government is currently pushing a new surveillance law in parliament to expand the intrusive abilities of domestic police and security services. Home Secretary Theresa May rejects the notion that domestic security agencies are involved in mass surveillance of its citizens, instead calling it “bulk collection.” She even said to a parliamentary committee that “We do not collect all the data, all of the time.”
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The information that Privacy International has learned about the collected data shows that the data involves medical records, financial records, travel records, commercial data, population data, billing data or subscriber details, regular feeds from internet and phone companies, content of communications (even with doctors, lawyers, and MPs), and government department records.
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