that had enabled its UK launch and asked for the system to be "switched off" while an investigation was completed. The ICO had given permission for the launch of the service in July 2008 based partly on Google's assurances that it would blur faces and vehicle licence plates to protect privacy. In its complaint, PI said that Google's claim that its face blurring system would result in a few misses was a "gross underestimation" and meant that the data used by Street View would fall under the UK's Data Protection Act 1998, which requires that subjects give permission for the use of information concerning them. However, the ICO rejected PI's complaint, noting that removing the service would be "disproportionate to the relatively small risk of privacy detriment" and that "Google Street View does not contravene the Data Protection Act and, in any case, it is not in the public interest to turn the digital clock back". NSA-GCHQ tribunal case In February 2015 PI and other claimants won a judgment from the UK Tribunal that the mass surveillance conducted by the GCHQ with data from the NSA was illegal up to December 2014, being in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights and lacking the necessary legal framework, whereupon PI launched a campaign enabling anyone in the world to ascertain (eventually) if the GCHQ illegally had their data from the NSA. PI and public controversy Privacy International's unconventional and sometimes aggressive approach to privacy advocacy has at times resulted in controversy and a questioning of its motives. The most notable political controversy surrounding the organization was sparked in 2005 when British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Home Secretary Charles Clarke publicly accused PI's director and founder Simon Davies of covertly using his academic affiliation with the London School of Economics (LSE) to undermine the government's plans for a national identity card. The LSE Director Sir Howard Davies strongly rebutted this charge. The government's intent was apparently to raise doubts about the accuracy of the report in several areas and in particular, the manner in which projected cost estimates had been calculated (based on figures developed by the independent IT analysis company, Kable), and what it called "selective and misleading use of evidence regarding biometrics and a failure to include any natural scientists to inform the report despite the significant claims made about biometrics and the accuracy of biometric technologies". Rather