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UK spy agencies have collected bulk personal data since 1990s, files show

21 April 2016

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"Agencies privately concede that ‘intrusive’ practices can invade privacy and that data is gathered on people ‘unlikely to be of interest’...

The files show that GCHQ, the government’s electronic eavesdropping centre based in Cheltenham, was collecting and developing bulk data sets as early as 1998 under powers granted by section 94 of the 1984 Telecommunications Act. ...Another MI5 file notes that datasets “contain personal data about individuals, the majority of whom are unlikely to be of intelligence or security interest”." [emphasis added]

See the article: UK spy agencies have collected bulk personal data since 1990s, files show (Guardian, link)

See Privacy International link with all the documents: Bulk Personal Datasets Challenge

and in the Intercept (link): "Elsewhere in the documents, eavesdropping agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and domestic intelligence agency MI5 admit that they have obtained the bulk datasets on several occasions dating back more than a decade – GCHQ beginning in 1998, and MI5 in 2005 – under Section 94 of the 1984 Telecommunications Act" [emphasis added]

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