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Privacy International is helping citizens find out whether the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters spied on them.
The UK charity has just launched a new campaign that lets anyone submit their contact details (ironic, eh?), which are then collated and sent off to the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal (via TNW).
If you want to sign up, follow this link and fill in the form. Should it turn out that GCHQ has spied on you, you'll be informed in due course.
It’s all thanks to the recently won case that saw the IPT declare that GCHQ has indeed acted unlawfully when it obtained millions of otherwise private communications as part of a mutual deal with the USA’s National Security Agency.
Now the acquisition of data has been confirmed as illegal, Privacy International hopes its mass request will see citizens finally made aware of whether they had been snooped on.
The requests submitted are legitimised by your right to respect for personal and family life, and your right to freedom of expression and information, both of which are laid out in the European Convention for Human Rights, specifically articles 8 and 10.
Related: Who are the Lizard Squad?
Eric King, Privacy International’s Deputy Director, said: “The public have a right to know if they were illegally spied on, and GCHQ must come clean on whose records they hold that they should never have had in the first place.”
“There are few chances that people have to directly challenge the seemingly unrestrained surveillance state, but individuals now have a historic opportunity to finally hold GCHQ accountable for their unlawful actions.”
