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Content Type: Report
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Back in October 2019, PI started investigating advertisers who uploaded personal data to Facebook for targeted advertising purposes. We decided to take a look at "Advertisers Who Uploaded a Contact List With Your Information", a set of information that Facebook provides to users about advertisers who upload files containing their personal data (including unique identifier such as phone numbers, emails etc...). Looking at the limited and often inaccurate information provided by…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Thursday, May 7, 2020
As parts of the world are preparing to go back to factories, offices, and other workplaces, or in the case of Amazon, trying to make continually unsafe workplaces less hazardous, we must be on the watch yet again for profiteering, data-grabs, and surveillance as a solution to an undefined problem.
Many of the measures are predicated on the idea of catching employees who are sick. But, why do employers think that employees are or will lie about their health? Is it because they love their jobs…
Content Type: Long Read
Thursday, May 7, 2020
This week saw the release of a coronavirus tracking app within the United Kingdom, initially to be trialled in the Isle of Wight. Privacy International has been following this closely, along with other ‘track and trace’ apps like those seen in over 30 other countries.
The UK’s app is no different. It is a small part of a public health response to this pandemic. As with all the other apps, it is vital that it be integrated with a comprehensive healthcare response, prioritise people, and…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
Privacy International (PI) welcomes today's report from the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) into three credit reference agencies (CRAs) which also operate as data brokers for direct marketing purposes. As a result, the ICO has ordered the credit reference agency Experian to make fundamental changes to how it handles people's personal data within its offline direct marketing services.
It is a long overdue enforcement action against Experian.
Read our Q&A on the report here.…
Content Type: Long Read
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash
Digital identity providers
Around the world, we are seeing the growth of digital IDs, and companies looking to offer ways for people to prove their identity online and off. The UK is no exception; indeed, the trade body for the UK tech industry is calling for the development of a “digital identity ecosystem”, with private companies providing a key role. Having a role for private companies in this sector is not necessarily a problem: after all, government…
Content Type: Frequently Asked Questions
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
On 27 October 2020, the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) issued a report into three credit reference agencies (CRAs) - Experian, Equifax and TransUnion - which also operate as data brokers for direct marketing purposes.
After our initial reaction, below we answer some of the main questions regarding this report.
Content Type: Press release
Thursday, June 18, 2020
Today, the ICO has issued a long-awaited and critical report on Police practices regarding extraction of data from people's phones, including phones belonging to the victims of crime.
The report highlights numerous risks and failures by the police in terms of data protection and privacy rights. The report comes as a result of PI’s complaint, dating back to 2018, where we outlined our concerns about this intrusive practice, which involves extraction of data from devices of victims, witnesses…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Monday, November 18, 2019
This op-ed originally appeared on the Atlantic Council's Disinfo Portal.
While these concerns are held by societies globally, Privacy International’s (PI) recent analysis shows that in jurisdictions where companies have been under pressure to act—by governments and institutions such as the EU, or civil society—they have adopted self-regulatory practices. But they have failed to apply this heightened transparency elsewhere.
The role of social media and search engine companies in…
Content Type: Long Read
Monday, September 9, 2019
In December 2018, Privacy international exposed the dubious practices of some of the most popular apps in the world.
Out of the 36 apps we tested, we found that 61% automatically transfer data to Facebook the moment a user opens the app. This happens whether the user has a Facebook account or not, and whether they are logged into Facebook or not. We also found that some of those apps routinely send Facebook incredibly detailed and sometimes sensitive personal data. Again, it didn’t matter if…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
In December 2018, we revealed how some of the most widely used apps in the Google Play Store automatically send personal data to Facebook the moment they are launched. That happens even if you don't have a Facebook account or are logged out of the Facebook platform (watch our talk at the Chaos Communication Congress (CCC) in Leipzig or read our full legal analysis here).
Today, we have some good news for you: we retested all the apps from our report and it seems as if we have made some impact…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Tuesday, January 7, 2020
Cloud extraction allows law enforcement agencies to take huge amounts of your data from the Cloud via a legal back door. If law enforcement seize your phone or take it from a victim of crime, they can extract tokens or passwords from the device which lets them get access to data from apps such as Uber, Instagram, Slack, Gmail, Alexa and WhatsApp.
In so doing, law enforcement agencies can avoid official channels through cloud companies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft. There is no check on…