UK Phonetap Laws Breach Privacy Date: Thursday, July 03, 2008 Source: The Guardian Unlimited

Government phone-tapping practices have violated the right to privacy, the European court of human rights ruled yesterday. It described the legal discretion granted to the government for intercepting communications as "virtually unfettered". Procedures covering the use and storage of intercepted material should be set out in a form which is open to public scrutiny and knowledge, it said. The judgment is the culmination of a nine-year legal battle by civil rights groups in London and Dublin who claim their communications have been subject to indiscriminate surveillance. The ruling will have widespread implications for Britain's current law on phonetapping and interception of communications, warned the groups involved - Liberty, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and British-Irish Rights Watch. Although the comments of the European court were directed at the 1985 Interception of Communications Act, they said the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) 2000, which superseded the 1985 act, was almost identical. The Guardian Unlimited Courtesy of SecurityOracle.com - The Secury Industry's Portal