Privacy security

EU slaps down British, Swedish surveillance laws as illegal

A European Union court said in a ruling Wednesday that new surveillance laws adopted in England and Sweden requiring telecommunications companies to retain all user data are not lawful.

Laws in Sweden and Britain allowing intelligence agencies to indiscriminately collect all user email and cell phone data under the pretense of preventing terrorism violate privacy laws, the Court of Justice of the European Union said Wednesday, and would allow governments to judge people's private lives with little to no oversight of how the information is used.

The law is the latest attempt by a government to collect as much data as possible under the guise of security. Similar efforts in the Netherlands and Germany have been shot down by courts, and the United States' surveillance practices -- such as those revealed by whistle blowers like Edward Snowden -- have come under scrutiny both inside and outside the U.S. as violating the privacy rights of average citizens.