Secretary of State for the Home Department v Watson MP & Ors

The Court of Appeal has made a final order in the claim brought by Tom Watson MP declaring that the UK data retention regime was unlawful because it did not provide for prior or independent authorisation of access to data and there was no limit on the use of data to serious crime. Other issues raised by the parties, including whether notice should be given after access is obtained, the retention of data in the EU and whether the UK scheme involves unlawful indiscriminate retention were deferred by the Court as more appropriately decided in a separate claim brought by Liberty due to be heard in February 2018. A summary of the Divisional Court case can be found here. The CJEU case summaries can be found here and here.

Click here for the full judgment.

James Eadie QC acted for the Secretary of State. Dinah Rose QC, Ben Jaffey QC and Iain Steele acted for Tom Watson MP. Ravi Mehta acted for the interveners.