Privacy International mounts legal challenge to UK government's hack warrants

Judicial Review filed at the High Court in London

Pressure group Privacy International has filed a Judicial Review at the UK High Court concerning the government's use of online surveillance and 'hack warrants'.

Privacy International has a lot of problems with the government and its shoulder-squatting surveillance, and has repeatedly challenged things like the Investigatory Powers Bill, or Snooper's Charter.

The most recent complaint is about the use of warrants for surveillance swoops on a broad range of people. Privacy International warned that the Investigatory Powers Bill will enshrine these warrants in law, enabling government agencies to legally deploy sweeping powers of surveillance.

"Privacy International has today filed a Judicial Review at the UK High Court challenging the Investigatory Powers Tribunal [IPT] decision that the government can issue general hacking warrants," the campaign group said.

"This decision means that British intelligence agency GCHQ can continue to hack into the computers and phones of broad classes of people, including those residing in the UK.

"The Investigatory Powers Bill, currently being debated in Parliament, seeks to further enshrine this power into law. Against that backdrop, the case we have filed today calls on the High Court to stop the practice of bulk hacking in the UK."

Privacy International claimed that the vague hacking warrants are dangerous and that their use is an "unprecedented expansion of state surveillance capabilities". The IPT has sanctioned this, according to the group, allowing its use on an industrial scale.

Privacy International also warned that the same tools can be used to corrupt a device, or plant or delete documents and data, and that the gaps in security created by government will be filled by hackers.

"The IPT's decision grants the government carte blanche to hack hundreds or thousands of people's computers and phones with a single warrant. General warrants permit GCHQ to target an entire class of persons or property without proving to a judge that each person affected is suspected of a crime or a threat to national security," said Scarlet Kim, legal officer at Privacy International.

"By sanctioning this power, the IPT has upended 250 years of common law that makes clear such warrants are unlawful. Combined with the power to hack, these warrants represent an extraordinary expansion of state surveillance capabilities with alarming consequences for the security of our devices and the internet."