ABSTRACT
The state possesses a myriad of methods of invading privacy in the course of seeking to prevent and detect crime or terrorist activity. It can place persons under surveillance, watch citizens on CCTV cameras, tap telephones, enter and search homes, or seek to build up a picture of a person’s mind by examining websites visited or mobile numbers called. Agents of the state invade privacy with increasing frequency as technology allowing them to do so becomes more advanced. The method of obtaining information creates an invasion of privacy; its use creates a further invasion. These actions are undertaken by the police, other law enforcement agencies and the security and intelligence services with the aim of promoting internal security or preventing and detecting crime. Such aims are clearly legitimate; the question is whether the safeguards against unreasonable or arbitrary intrusion are adequate. Under the requirements of the Human Rights Act (HRA), such safeguards have to include a clear remedy for the citizen who has been the subject of unauthorised surveillance or other intrusion, and should create strict Convention-compliant controls over the power to effect such intrusion or issue authorisation for it. The latter safeguard is particularly crucial since the citizen may not even be aware that intrusion is taking place. This is particularly true of telephone tapping and the use of surveillance devices.
