By Zach Warren, From Legaltech News

The judges suspended the law’s disapplication until March 2016 to let government ‘legislate properly,’ and another bill could soon be on its way.

The United Kingdom’s expansive surveillance laws are taking a back seat—for now.

On July 17, the U.K. High Court ruled that the government’s Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA) is “inconsistent with EU law.” The act, passed in a rushed national parliament session in 2014, governed the data collection practices of police and other officials.

The challenge to the law came from parliment members Tom Watson (Labour) and David Davis (Conservative), who teamed up with civil rights campaign group Liberty. The challengers argued that the expansive data collection techniques, in practice, were not limited to cases involving serious crime as they were supposed to be under the law.

The judges ruled that the act as written “does not lay down clear and precise rules providing for access to and use of communications data retained pursuant to a retention notice to be strictly restricted to the purpose of preventing and detecting precisely defined serious offences, or of conducting criminal prosecutions relating to such offences.”

However, despite ruling that the act should be “disapplied,” the judges ruled that the order for disapplication should be suspended until March 31, 2016, in order “to allow time for the government to legislate properly.” This ends DRIPA only nine months earlier than it may have ceased anyway, as the initial act held a sunset clause for the end of the 2016 calendar year.

As a result, government officials had already been working on a DRIPA follow-up, with the current iteration coming in the soon-to-be-introduced Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB). Although British parilment members are currently debating the correct balance between necessarily surveillance practices and privacy rights, there is a greater consensus supporting the need for clarity in spelling out the distinct surveillance capabilities of law enforcement. While DRIPA was roundly criticized as ambiguous, IPB is expected to provide a clearer standard.

Liberty believes that the High Court’s ruling could have a big impact on this upcoming law, saying, “The High Court has now added its voice, ruling key provisions of DRIPA unlawful. Now is the time for the Home Secretary to commit publicly to surveillance conducted with proper respect for privacy, democracy and the rule of law – not plough on with more of the same.”

For more on this story go to: http://www.legaltechnews.com/id=1202732460819/UK-High-Court-Rules-Data-Collection-UnlawfulFor-Now#ixzz3gRmL7YRn