Mass surveillance

'Enormous' Threats to Human Rights Over UK Bulk Surveillance - Campaigners

Ever since the revelations by former CIA contractor Edward Snowden that Britain's spy agency GCHQ and the US National Security Agency (NSA) of mass collection of communications data, the issue of privacy has dogged governments across the globe. 

The UK government was forced to introduce new legislation — the Investigatory Powers bill, known as the Snoopers' Charter — which will allow police and the security services to require communications services providers (CSPs) to retain bulk data on phone calls, emails, social media and other communications for up to a year so that they can have access to them for counterterrorism investigations.