The UK high court has found that emergency surveillance legislation introduced by the coalition government last year is unlawful, according to an article by The Guardian.
A judicial challenge by the Labour MP Tom Watson and the Conservative MP David Davis has overturned the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (Dripa) 2014. The judges ruled that data retention powers in the legislation were inconsistent with EU laws.
The government has been ordered to pass new legislation that must come into effect by the end of next March.
The MPs complained that use of communications data was not limited to cases involving serious crime, that individual notices of data retention were kept secret and that no provision was made for those under obligation of professional confidentiality, in particular lawyers and journalists. Nor, they argued, were there adequate safeguards against communications data leaving the European Union.
To read The Guardian’s entire story on this, click here .