Spies can snoop on phone data in a crisis: European Union's top court

The European Union’s (EU) top court ruled on Tuesday that unrestrained mass surveillance of phone and internet data is unlawful, in a move which could curb the powers of spying agencies in France and other EU countries.

Privacy rights advocacy groups brought the case and the outcome is likely to reverberate outside the EU as governments in the United States and China have ramped up surveillance tools in the name of national security.

The EU'S Court of Justice said that the general and indiscriminate retention of such data can only be allowed when governments face a "serious threat to national security". In