The European Court of Human Rights [official website] ruled [judgment] Thursday that the UK’s bulk interception program violated Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, the article pertaining to the respect of private life.

The court held that the bulk interception program violated Article 8:

as there was insufficient oversight both of the selection of Internet bearers for interception and the filtering, search and selection of intercepted communications for examination, and the safeguards governing the selection of “related communications data” for examination were inadequate.

The bulk interception program has been utilized by both the UK and the US in sharing information and was revealed by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.