Two human rights groups filed a lawsuit in Paris on Thursday seeking an investigation of whether the U.S. National Security Agency violated French privacy laws by secretly collecting huge amounts of personal data.
According to The Associated Press, the France-based International Federation for Human Rights and the Human Rights League say that such surveillance of phone and Internet usage data, if confirmed, would violate up to five French privacy laws. The groups’ lawyer, Patrick Baudouin, estimated that thousands of French people may be regularly targeted by the surveillance.
These suits follow similar ones filed in the U.K. (Privacy International) and the U.S. (Electronic Privacy Information Center; American Civil Liberties Union).