WIEDER AND GUARNIERI v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT are represented before the Court by Mr M. Scott of Bhatt Murphy Solicitors, a lawyer practising in London. 3. The United Kingdom Government were represented by their Agent, Mr J. Gaughan of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. 4. The Italian Government did not seek to exercise their right to intervene (Article 36 § 1 of the Convention and Rule 44 of the Rules of Court). THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE 5. The facts of the case may be summarised as follows. A. The applicants 6. The first applicant is an IT professional and independent researcher. He has worked for commercial data centres and news organisations. 7. The second applicant is a privacy and security researcher and the creator of an open source malware analysis system. He has researched and published extensively on privacy and surveillance with Der Spiegel and The Intercept. B. The Liberty proceedings 8. On 5 December 2014, 6 February 2015 and 22 June 2015 the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (“the IPT”) handed down three rulings on an application lodged by ten human rights organisations (“the Liberty proceedings”: see Big Brother Watch and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 58170/13 and 2 others, §§ 28-60, 25 May 2021). That case concerned the bulk interception of communications by the United Kingdom intelligence agencies pursuant to section 8(4) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (“RIPA”) and the receipt by the United Kingdom intelligence agencies of material intercepted by their foreign counterparts. The IPT upheld the lawfulness of those regimes, finding neither to be in breach of Articles 8, 10 or 14 of the Convention. However, it accepted that prior to disclosures made in the course of the proceedings, “the regime governing the soliciting, receiving, storing and transmitting by UK authorities of private communications of individuals located in the UK, which have been obtained by US authorities pursuant to Prism and/or ... Upstream, contravened Articles 8 or 10 ECHR”. The IPT was of the view that without the disclosures made, there would not have been adequate signposting of the existing arrangements, as was required under Articles 8 and 10 of the Convention. 9. It further held that the communications of one of the applicant organisations had been lawfully and proportionately intercepted and accessed pursuant to section 8(4) of RIPA but that the material had been retained for 2