The Guardian explains that after Snowden exposed the British government's role in citizen surveillance, tapping into communication networks to suck on that massive firehose of data, 14 human rights and privacy groups filed suit against the U.K.

By a 5-2 vote the court's judges determined that the U.K. had violated the privacy components of the European Convention of Human Rights. The ruling cited a “lack of oversight of the entire selection process” and “the absence of any real safeguards.”

The court’s seven judges also voted 6-1 that Britain’s regime for getting data from communications service providers also violated the human rights convention, including its provisions on privacy and on freedom of expression. The challenge was instigated following the revelations from US whistle-blower Edward Snowden.In an extensive condemnation of UK's protection of human rights, the judges also deemed there to be "insufficient safeguards" for journalistic sources under government's surveillance policy.Aspects of the policy, the court declared, breached two articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - the right to private life (Article 8) and the right to free expression (Article 10).However, the court ruled that information sharing with foreign governments didn't break the ECHR, ruling there was no evidence of abuse or significant shortcomings.The landmark case, brought forward by Amnesty International and the civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, among others, was instigated by the leaks of Edward Snowden. The court has concluded that the UK's mass interception programmes breached the European Convention on Human Rights.The case of 'Big Brother Watch and Others v the United Kingdom' was launched by privacy and civil liberties groups in the aftermath of the Edward Snowden revelations, which saw the former US National Security Agency contractor blow the whistle on surveillance and intelligence sharing programs run by intelligence services in the United States and the United Kingdom . The matter first came to light in 2013 when NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed British surveillance practices—namely that the government intercepts social media, messages, and phone calls regardless of criminal record or suspicions of criminal activity.
The European Court of Human Rights rules that the United Kingdom breached provisions in the European Convention on Human Rights in relation to mass surveillance practices exposed by American whistleblower Edward Snowden.