Advocacy

In June 2024, PI filed expert witness testimony before the court to assist the adjudication of the case.

PI responded to the ICO consultation on engineering individual rights into generative AI models such as LLMs. Our overall assessment is that the major generative AI models are unable to uphold individuals’ rights under the UK GDPR. New technologies designed in a way that cannot uphold people’s rights cannot be permitted just for the sake of innovation.

Our submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education on academic freedom and surveillance of educational institutions.

In this briefing, Privacy International outlines its analysis of some key provisions on the Updated Draft of the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime, which will be negotiated at the reconvened concluding session of the Ad Hoc Committee in late July. While not aiming to be comprehensive, PI's comments cover the following Articles: 3, 4, 6, 7-11, 23, 24, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36, 47 and 54.

New historic judgment by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights declaring the Republic of Colombia internationally responsible for human rights violations, including privacy, against several members of a human rights defenders groups and their relatives

Privacy International and other CSOs present their main comments and recommendations on the Zero Draft of the UN Global Digital Compact.

PI joins the #ProtectNotSurveil coalition in calling out the EU's New Pact on Migration and Asylum voted on 10 April 2024, a package of reforms expanding the criminalisation and digital surveillance of migrants.

Privacy International submitted its input to the UN Special Rapporteur on racism for their upcoming report which will examine and analyse the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and non-discrimination and racial equality, as well as other international human rights standards.

One of the sectors to integrate AI-powered tools into their day-to-day operations is the employment and recruitment sector. PI has responded to the ICO's recent consultation on its draft guidance for employers and recruiters on deploying AI in recruitment. Our response focuses on the processor/controller designation of recruiters and the third party LLMs they outsource and candidates' employment rights that may be undermined by algorithmic decision-making (ADM).

PI published its comments on the Revised Draft of the negotiating text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement (13 March 2024) which will be discussed by the WHO Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) between 18 and 28 March 2024.

The final text of the EU AI Act adopted by the European Parliament on 13 March 2024 fails to prevent tech-enabled harm to migrants and provide protection for people on the move.

PI responded to the ICO consultation on the legality of web scraping by AI developers when producing generative AI models such as LLMs. Developers are known to scrape enormous amounts of data from the web in order to train their models on different types of human-generated content. But data collection by AI web-scrapers can be indiscriminate and the outputs of generative AI models can be unpredictable and potentially harmful.

Privacy International and civil society organisations, from across different sectors, have written to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation, and Technology expressing grave concerns over the financial surveillance powers proposed in the UK Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (DPDI Bill).

On 3rd May, 2024, the Human Rights Committee (HRC), the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) issued its concluding observations on the eighth periodic report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Ahead of the HRC’s review of the UK, PI had made a submission highlighting key concerns in relation to the current UK communications’ surveillance regime and the proposal for its reform; the surveillance of migrants; and the surveillance of peaceful assemblies.

The UK is once again seeking to expand its surveillance powers. Seven years after the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 became law, the UK Government is now trying to amend it in ways which would further undermine already insufficient bulk surveillance safeguards and introduce a notification regime which could be used to prevent companies from implementing important privacy and security measures. PI is joining other UK civil society organisations in objecting to this problematic Bill.