Category: Surveillance

UK tribunal fundamentally wrong on Clearview

On 17 October 2023, the UK First-Tier Tribunal held the use of the surveillance system offered by the US company Clearview by non-UK law enforcement and intelligence agencies constituted “an activity which, immediately before [Brexit] completion day, fell outside the scope of EU law”, and hence the GDPR. In this brief analysis, I look at why the Tribunal came to this conclusion, and show it is fundamentally flawed.

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The inadequacy of the US Executive Order on Enhancing Safeguards For US Signals Intelligence Activities

The new US Executive Order does not change the fact the US authorities insist on carrying out indiscriminate, untargeted mass surveillance, also of EU persons and EU governmental and non-governmental entities, by means of bulk collection of data, without independent substantive judicial oversight or effective redress.

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Opinion on the Passenger Name Record CJEU case

In Case-817/19, Belgium’s Constitutional Court has asked the EU Court of Justice whether the PNR Directive (2016/681) is compatible with the Charter of Fundamental Rights. On the basis of this detailed legal opinion, the CJEU should declare the Directive (like the Data Retention Directive) to be fundamentally in breach of the Charter.

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