Current legal cases

We are challenging the UK Government’s secret plans to access Apple users’ private data stored in iCloud.

Apple’s end-to-end encryption service, known as Advanced Data Protection (ADP), allows Apple iCloud users to have their data secured and protected – including bank details, health records, photos and private conversations – so that it is only viewable by the user.

In February 2025, it was reported that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had issued Apple with a ‘Technical Capability Notice’ (TCN) under powers given by the Snooper’s Charter. The TCN demands Apple create a ‘backdoor’ into iCloud that would bypass its ADP security, giving the Government access to our encrypted data.

It is impossible to break encryption for a limited purpose. Once it is broken, it is broken for everyone. This TCN will put billions of people’s personal data at risk, exposing it to hacking and access by oppressive governments and other bad actors. This includes the data of anyone you interact with that’s saved to iCloud; calls, messages, and photos of your friends and family could be exposed. It particularly affects journalists, LGBT+ communities, religious groups and political activists who are at risk of being targeted.

It is the first time a major democracy has sought to weaken end-to-end encryption in this way. This is a frontier case to protect end-to-end encryption, and resist mass surveillance.

Alongside rights group Privacy International, we’re challenging the Government’s decision and the use of notices like this on the basis that they breach our rights to privacy and free expression, including because of their secretive nature, the indiscriminate mass surveillance they lead to, and the way they endanger the data of billions.

We have also applied to intervene in Apple’s own case challenging the Government’s TCN, as well as requesting to open up that case so that it happens at least in part in public. The Government’s attempt to keep even the basic facts of Apple’s case secret was recently rejected by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.

We have had confirmation from the Tribunal that our case will be heard, and the case will be progressing in the coming months.

We’re in the middle of a case against the Government because its Investigatory Powers Act (the Snoopers’ Charter) gives the police and security services powers to spy on everyone whether or not we’re suspected of wrongdoing.

We’re arguing these ‘bulk powers’ violate rights to privacy and freedom of expression, because there are insufficient safeguards in the Act, including to protect confidential journalistic sources and legal material.

In April 2018, the High Court said the Act was incompatible with EU law in the way that it allowed state agencies to access data held by telecommunications operators, and the Act was amended.

But in June 2019, the Court said the ‘bulk powers’ don’t breach privacy and free expression rights and the Act does contain sufficient safeguards for journalistic and legal communications.

In October 2020, the EU Court of Justice gave its judgment in a related surveillance case brought by Privacy International. The Court ruled against the UK Government, finding that mass data collection and retention practices must comply with EU privacy safeguards.

In June 2022, in our case, the High Court of Justice ruled that it is unlawful for the security services – MI5, MI6 and GCHQ – to obtain individuals’ communications data from telecom providers without having prior independent authorisation, when those bodies are carrying out criminal investigations.

We appealed against the High Court’s June 2019 and June 2022 judgments. In August 2023, the Court of Appeal said that the regime for sharing bulk personal datasets with overseas states was unlawful. However, it said that generally the Act is lawful. It sent one point on safeguards for journalists when it comes to bulk hacking back to the High Court of Justice for a further hearing.

In January 2024, the Government agreed to amend the Act to bring in new safeguards to protect journalists following our case. The amendment requires independent authorisation before the intelligence agencies can search for or retain confidential journalistic material, like communications with sources, from bulk data collected through hacking devices.

The amendment has been passed into law as part of the Investigatory Powers Act (Amendment) Act which officially came into effect in October 2024. Subsequently, we have dropped this part of our case.

Find out more and view case documents

We’ve successfully challenged the lawfulness of the Government’s actions when it changed the definition of ‘serious disruption’ as a trigger for police interventions at protests to mean ‘more than minor’ disruption.

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman tried to change the definition as part of the Public Order Act in January 2023, but the proposals were democratically rejected by Parliament.

However, a few months later in June 2023, Braverman pushed through the changes using ‘secondary legislation’, which requires less Parliamentary scrutiny and debate.

The new regulations significantly lowered the threshold of when police can impose conditions on a protest and arrest demonstrators. Liberty was concerned about the way the Government had ‘sneaked this law through the back door’ to evade accountability after it had failed to make the change through Parliament.

Hundreds of protesters have been arrested under these measures since they were created, including the climate activist Greta Thunberg who was acquitted of all charges in a hearing in February 2024.

In February 2024, Liberty took the Home Secretary to the High Court to argue that the new regulations had been created unlawfully. The term ‘serious disruption’ comes from the Public Order Act 1986. We argued the Home Secretary has the power to clarify what is meant by ‘serious’ – not completely change its meaning.

We also argued the Home Office’s consultation on the changes was unlawful because it only had input from policing bodies and not anyone who would be impacted by the changes.

The Court agreed with us and ruled in May 2024 that the Home Secretary could not change the law as she did. However, the Government immediately announced they were appealing the judgment before the General Election.

The new Labour Government continued with the appeal, and we went to Court in December 2024.

In May 2025, the Court of Appeal dismissed the Government’s appeal and ruled in favour of Liberty. The judges once again agreed that these anti-protest laws were made unlawfully, and that ‘serious’ could not mean ‘more than minor’.

In June, Labour decided to quietly drop any further appeal, meaning laws that allowed police to intervene in any protest causing a ‘more than minor’ disruption are finally quashed.

We are now urgently calling for a review of all arrests and convictions made under these powers.

We took legal action against the UK’s equality watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), for failing to carry out a fair consultation on their Code of practice following the Supreme Court decision about the definition of the words ‘man’, ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010.

The EHRC originally proposed a two-week consultation period on their Code of practice. In May 2025, we wrote to them asking to extend their consultation period to at least 12 weeks. Unfortunately, they continued with a much shorter six-week consultation, which ran until the end of June 2025.

UK courts have established that consultation periods must run for long enough, and this may mean longer in circumstances where the public body is thinking about taking away existing benefits or where vulnerable people are affected. A recent case against the Department of Work and Pensions ruled an eight-week consultation period on disability benefits unlawful for not giving Disabled people “adequate time to consider, take advice upon and respond” to the proposals.

The Code of practice runs to nearly 60 pages of amendments, and touches on complex areas of the law. This will have life-changing implications for how trans people, and those who do not comply to gender norms, will access services and facilities. Businesses and service providers may have needed more time than was given to seek external legal support, such as on changes to their practices or in interpreting complex areas of the law.

Due to the significant impact the guidance will have on trans individuals and organisations who needed more support to respond, we believe the consultation period did not comply with the law. We also believe the EHRC breached its public sector equality duty (PSED), which stipulates that public bodies must have due regard to the need to eliminate harassment and discrimination of people with protected characteristics when running a consultation exercise.

In a hearing on 6 June 2025, the High Court refused us permission to proceed with our case. We urgently appealed, and at our appeal hearing the Court of Appeal refused us permission to appeal and to proceed with our case.

In 2024, we supported Black Equity Organisation (BEO) in a successful legal challenge against the Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and the Secretary of State for Justice (SSJ) over a discriminatory GPS tagging system.

Under the GPS tagging scheme, people who have been in prison for knife-related crimes can be selected for tagging when released from prison. This means they have to wear an electronic tag 24 hours a day as long as probation officials decide. The tag creates a detailed record of the wearer’s movements.

Black Equity Organisation (BEO), an anti-racism charity, challenged the scheme on the grounds of race discrimination. Statistics found that Black people are nearly twice as likely to be selected for tagging as white people. Additionally, BEO felt that MOPAC and the SSJ hadn’t complied with their equality duties to monitor and understand this disproportionality.

We acted as solicitors in this case. In January 2025, BEO reached an out-of-court settlement with MOPAC and the SSJ, with both MOPAC and the SSJ agreeing to make significant changes to the tagging system, with potential knock-on impacts for similar schemes.

MOPAC and the SSJ agreed to:

• withdraw the selection criteria for tagging, including the criteria relating to links to ‘gangs’, commonly understood to be a racialised term used to target young Black men
• collect, evaluate, and publish yearly data relating to selection for tagging
• improve transparency for those tagged, including earlier notification and information on how to challenge their tagging
• undertake a ‘rapid review’ to investigate and identify strategies to reduce racial disproportionality (including a review by an independent expert)
• invite BEO to join the SSJ’s Electronic Monitoring Advisory Group.

Raj Desai and Aidan Wills were instructed as counsel. Professor Jose Pina-Sánchez worked with Liberty/BEO as an expert on the statistical analysis of the racial disproportionality.

The Court Order reflecting the settlement is here. BEO’s statement is here. The case featured on ITV News, and the clip can be found here.

In January 2024, we supported Wendy Smith in a judicial review challenging the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (Policing Act 2022) that gives the police new powers to ban Gypsies and Travellers from an area for up to 12 months, as well as fine, arrest, imprison and seize the homes of those living in roadside camps.

These changes to the law could potentially leave families, including children, destitute.

Wendy Smith, a Romany woman, took the Home Secretary to the High Court in January 2024. She argued that the new laws brought in by the Policing Act are discriminatory as they target ethnic minority communities who have no alternative stopping places. Liberty alongside Friends, Families and Travellers (FFT) acted as interveners on the case.

In May 2024, the High Court declared that parts of the Policing Act as a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights as they unjustifiably discriminate against nomadic people’s way of life.

Parliament will now have to review those provisions to ensure they comply with the Convention.

We supported Anthony Sinclair in a case against the Met Police, when he was arrested for refusing to comply with a ‘dispersal order’ outside a London hospital.

Dispersal orders allow police officers to direct a person engaging or likely to engage in anti-social behaviour to leave a specified area for 48 hours. These powers were not created to deal with poverty or homelessness.

In November 2023, police ordered several people living in tents outside of the hospital to leave the area. The air vents that their tents were next to provided extra warmth during the winter. When Mr Sinclair refused to leave, he was arrested. While he was in custody, his belongings – including his tent, mattress and toiletries – were thrown into bin lorries.

Liberty took legal action on behalf of Mr Sinclair who was also supported by grassroots organisation Streets Kitchen, on the grounds that dispersal orders should not prevent people from accessing where they live.

Liberty argued that the actions of the police breached Mr Sinclair’s human rights and put him and numerous other homeless people at risk of harm.

In January 2024, following legal challenge, the Met Police Commissioner issued an apology.

In the letter, the Met accepted that it was not lawful for officers to authorise a dispersal order or to issue directions to Sinclair, particularly because he had been living in that place for an extended period.

They agreed that the police did not have reasonable grounds to suspect Mr Sinclair had committed any anti-social behaviour.

They accepted that in doing so, officers unlawfully interfered with Sinclair’s right to respect his private and family life, under the Human Rights Act.

Liberty represented Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA) in a successful legal challenge against the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in relation to longstanding and credible concerns that vulnerable and minority groups were disproportionately subject to prosecutions on a joint enterprise basis. There was a particular concern that joint enterprise prosecutions were disproportionately brought against Black and Minority Ethnic people, young people and those with learning disabilities and neurodiverse conditions. There was also a concern relating to the over-charging of offences in respect of “gang related matters”.

JENGbA challenged the DPP’s failure to take relevant steps to collect and/or evaluate data on the protected characteristics of race, age and disability in relation to prosecutions brought under the joint enterprise doctrine. This data would enable the DPP to identify, understand and, if appropriate, act to mitigate disproportionality in this area of its casework.

In February 2023, JENGbA reached an out-of-court settlement which required the DPP to:

• establish a pilot scheme across selected CPS areas where homicide prosecutions (including attempted homicide prosecutions) brought on a joint enterprise basis are flagged
• review homicide prosecutions brought on a joint enterprise basis to identify and analyse:
  • whether there is any disproportionality in joint enterprise prosecutions by reference to race, age, sex and mental impairment; and
  • the use of gang narratives, any link to gang offending as defined in the CPS Decision making in Gang-related offences guidance and compliance with that guidance
• establish a Scrutiny Panel comprising third sector stakeholders to review completed joint enterprise cases and provide feedback
• commence a national scheme across all CPS areas after the conclusion of the pilot scheme which is no less extensive than the pilot

On 29 September 2023, the CPS published their analysis on the data collected during the pilot scheme. The data showed that Black people were 16 times more likely to be prosecuted under joint enterprise than white people.

On 29 September 2023, the CPS published their analysis on the data collected during the pilot scheme. The data showed that Black people were 16 times more likely to be prosecuted under joint enterprise than white people.

On 1 February 2024, the national scheme became operational on the CPS case management system.

In April 2025, the CPS will review the data gathered from the operation of the national scheme and will publish their data analysis on or around July 2025 onwards. This data will be published annually from July 2025 onwards.

Raj Desai and Aidan Wills were instructed as counsel. The court Order reflecting the settlement is here.

During our case against the Investigatory Powers Act, it emerged that MI5 has unlawfully stored and mishandled people’s data for a decade, including not deleting it when it should have done. For a long time, MI5 didn’t report its lawbreaking to the surveillance watchdog, and provided false information to get warrants and spy on us. We argued these breaches show the Investigatory Powers Act isn’t fit for purpose.

Find out more and view case documents

Liberty represented Awate Suleiman, a musician and writer, and UNJUST UK, a community interest company challenging injustice in the criminal legal system, in a legal challenge against the Metropolitan Police Service over its use of the Gangs Violence Matrix (GVM). The Matrix was a secretive database used to identify and risk-assess individuals linked to gang-related violence and which disproportionately targeted Black men and boys.

Liberty argued that the Matrix:

• Discriminated against people of colour, particularly Black people, who were disproportionately represented on the Matrix.
• Breached the right to private and family life (Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)), with sensitive personal data about those on the database shared broadly.
• Violated the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) for public authorities to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation and advance equality of opportunity.

The Met admitted that the Matrix breached the right to a private and family life. Individuals’ sensitive personal data had been widely shared with third parties — including the Home Office, local authorities, the DWP, schools, housing providers, and other agencies — putting them at risk of over-policing, school exclusion, eviction, loss of welfare benefits, deportation or even children being taken into care.

The Met also acknowledged that Black individuals were disproportionately represented on the Matrix and that previous efforts to address this had failed.

As a result of the legal action:

• More than one thousand names were removed from the Matrix.
• Individuals could apply to find out whether they were on the Matrix, and would only be refused if necessary for limited specified reasons, with the Information Commissioner to review refusals upon request.
• Those removed may request the data that had been held on them.
• A commitment to overhaul the operation of the Matrix was agreed.

Ultimately, the Met decided to dismantle the Matrix as of February 2024.

Adam Straw KC and Tayyiba Bajwa were instructed as counsel.

Find out more about this case here.

In 2021, we intervened in Cameron Mitchell’s case against the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (SSWP) after his disability benefits were suspended for staying in hospital longer than 28 days.

Cameron Mitchell, a disabled man from Carlisle with complex needs, spent 128 days at the Royal Victoria Infirmary which resulted in his Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and his mother’s Carers Allowance being put on hold.

Under current regulations known as the “hospitalisation rule”, a person’s entitlement to their benefits is suspended if they receive care in hospital for more than 28 days. But Cameron still needed support from his mother as his known carer, and hospital staff relied on her to assess his pain levels and spot when he was about to have a seizure. The family lost more than £5,000 in benefits during his stay at hospital.

Liberty intervened in Cameron’s judicial review, which argued that the Department for Work and Pension’s (DWP) failing to provide an exception to the “hospitalisation rule” for disabled people, whose needs do not change, discriminates against them and breaches their human rights.  We worked closely with Inclusion London on the intervention, so that the court would hear directly from disabled people.

In 2022, Cameron was given permission to go ahead with his judicial review, but he eventually settled his case and received compensation for the benefits his family had lost during his stay in hospital.

Liberty acted as lawyers for a Bulgarian man who had been given a Community Protection Order (CPN) that forbade him from pitching a tent, using a sound amplifier or making excessive noise in any public place in London.

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Liberty acted as lawyers for a woman who had been given a Community Protection Order (CPN) that forbade her from begging and even going into a show “without a valid reason”.

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After Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that the UK Government was spying on ordinary people not suspected of wrongdoing, Liberty and nine other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) challenged the surveillance regime in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The Grand Chamber ruled in May 2021 in our favour. Like the previous court, the Grand Chamber ruled that the surveillance regime had insufficient safeguards. However, it also ruled that bulk interception should in principle be allowed.

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We acted as solicitors for Ed Bridges, who challenged South Wales Police’s use of live facial recognition in public. In the world’s first legal challenge to police use of this tech, Ed argued the force was breaching rights to privacy, data protection laws, and equality laws.

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We intervened in Privacy International’s case about whether decisions made by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) can be reviewed by a High Court judge.

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