445 Esther Salamanca Aguado Respect for privacy and personal data protection... and effective guarantees against abuse”.75 In the instant case, the Court reached the conclusion that the Swedish government “was entitled to consider that in the present case the interests of national security prevailed over the individual interests of the applicant”, and that the interference to which the applicant was subjected “cannot therefore be said to have been disproportionate to the legitimate aim pursued”.76 The Swedish law that allows the intelligence service (Security Police) to store personal data in the name of the struggle against espionage and terrorism was re-examined in the Segerstedt-Wiberg and Others case.77 In this case, however, the Court concluded that the storage of the information in the interests of national security was only necessary with respect to one of the applicants, but not for any of the remaining applicants.78 3. THE POSITIVE OBLIGATIONS OF THE STATE UNDER ARTICLE 8 OF THE ECHR Article 8.2 of the ECHR sets out the cases in which interference, by public authorities, with the rights guaranteed under paragraph 1 are justified.79 However, what happens when interference comes from third parties, be they private parties or States? In the context of mass surveillance of communications, the European Parliament has called on EU Member States: “immediately to fulfil their positive obligation under the European Convention on Human Rights to protect their citizens from surveillance contrary to its requirements, including when the aim thereof is to safeguard national security, undertaken by third states or by their own intelligence services, and to ensure that the rule of law is not weakened as a result of extraterritorial application of a third country’s law”.80 75 Ibid., paragraph 60. 76 Ibid., paragraph 67. 77 Case of Segerstedt-Wiberg and Others v. Sweden. Judgment of 6 June 2006, paragraph 87. 78 Ibid., paragraph 92. 79 For more information on the contracting states’ general obligations under the Convention, see FERNÁNDEZ SÁNCHEZ, P. A., Las obligaciones de los Estados en el marco del Convenio Europeo de Derechos Humanos, Ministerio de Defensa, Madrid, 1987. 80 The Moraes Report, paragraph 27.
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