Constitutional court bans bulk Internet surveillance in South Africa
In a landmark judgment handed down on Thursday, the constitutional court banned the South African state from bulk surveillance of online communication, preventing security agencies from hoovering up Internet data.
This sort of surveillance, which is routinely done by agencies such as the National Security Agency in the US and GCHQ in the UK – both of which have routinely tapped into submarine Internet cables – is now illegal in South Africa thanks to the country’s highest court.
The minister of state security had appealed an earlier high court judgment on the legality of bulk communication surveillance. The lower court had already declared bulk surveillance unlawful. The judgment by the constitutional court means the state has run out of legal options and any bulk surveillance is now unlawful and invalid.
South Africa’s RICA law is unconstitutional: court ruling
Subscribe
South Africa’s Constitutional Court has confirmed that the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act (RICA) is unconstitutional.
In a judgement handed down on Thursday morning (3 February), the court said that the legislation is unconstitutional in that it fails to provide adequate safeguards to ‘protect the right to privacy, as buttressed by the rights to freedom of expression and the media, access to courts and a fair trial’.
The ruling comes after journalist Sam Sole – who has been the subject of state surveillance – and the Amabhungane Centre for Investigate Journalism applied to challenge the Act’s constitutionality.