To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog: On 25 May 2021, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) handed down its judgment in the case Big Brother Watch v United Kingdom ( BBW), holding that the UK had breached the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention) in relation to the regime established for bulk interception of communications data and obtaining this data from communications service providers. Although the ECtHR clarified that bulk interception as such does not violate the Convention (referring to the variety of complex threats existing in modern society), it held that such interception must be subject to “end-to-end safeguards”. These safeguards should include a necessity and proportionality assessment of interception measures at each stage of the process; an independent authorisation (by a body informed of the purpose of interception, the communication routes to be intercepted and the types or categories of “selectors” to be used on the intercepted data) at the time when object and scope of the operation are being defined; continuous supervision of the process and subsequent independent review.