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Content Type: Advocacy
Tuesday, February 21, 2023
The submission provides PI’s information and analysis of some of the topics listed in the call. The widespread use of new technologies presents both opportunities and challenges for the protection of human rights, including the right to life and the right to privacy. PI believes that is essential that states take a human rights-centered approach in their use of these technologies, and ensure that their use is consistent with international human rights law. By doing so, states can ensure that…
Content Type: Advocacy
Thursday, December 15, 2022
PI welcomes the opportunity to engage once again with the mandate by submitting comments, evidence, and recommendations to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Ms. Tlaleng Mofokeng. We hope that our input will contribute to the forthcoming report, “Digital innovation, technologies and the right to health”.
Technology has contributed significantly to the planning and delivery of health information, services and care. We have seen the use of data and technology across the healthcare…
Content Type: Long Read
Monday, August 22, 2022
Introduction
In response to the unprecedented social, economic, and public health threats posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Bank financed at least 232 "Covid-19 Response" projects. The projects were implemented across countries the World Bank classifies as middle and low-income.
This article will focus on eight (8) Covid-19 Response projects which sought to deliver social assistance to individuals and families on a "non-contributory" basis (this means that the intended beneficiaries…
Content Type: Advocacy
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Today, PI filed a complaint with the Forensic Science Regulator (FSR) in relation to quality and accuracy issues in satellite-enabled Global Positioning System (GPS) tags used for Electronic Monitoring of subjects released from immigration detention (GPS tags). We are concerned there may be systemic failures in relation to the quality of data extracted from tags, processed and interpreted for use in investigations and criminal prosecutions.
The GPS tags are used by the Home Office to collect…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Privacy International (PI) has today filed complaints with the Information Commissioner (ICO) and Forensic Science Regulator (FSR) against the UK Home Office's use of GPS ankle tags to monitor migrants released on immigration bail. This policy and practice represents a seismic change in the surveillance of migrants in the UK. PI was first alerted to this scheme by organisations such as Bail for Immigration Detainees, an independent charity that exists to challenge immigration detention in the…
Content Type: Press release
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
To mark 10 years of the Home Office's hostile environment, a coalition of charities last night projected a vast message on the Home Office's Lunar House building in South London, to draw attention to Home Secretary Priti Patel's plans to GPS ankle tag thousands of migrants - a coercive, costly, and dehumanising measure.
As part of a week of events to mark 10 years of the "hostile environment", a set of policies designed to make life difficult for what former Home Secretary Theresa May…
Content Type: Report
Monday, May 23, 2022
Privacy International’s submissions for the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration inspection of the Home Office Satellite Tracking Service Programme
The Home Office have introduced 24/7 electronic monitoring and collection of the location data of migrants via GPS ankle tags. This seismic change cannot be overstated. The use of GPS tags and intention to use location data, kept for six years after the tag is removed, in immigration decision-making goes far beyond the mere…
Content Type: Press release
Friday, March 25, 2022
Today, the High Court ruled that the Home Secretary acted unlawfully and breached human rights and data protection laws by operating a secret, blanket policy of seizing, retaining and extracting data from the mobile phones of asylum seekers arriving by small boat.
This claim for judicial review was brought by three asylum seeking claimants: HM represented by Gold Jennings, and KA and MH represented by Deighton Pierce Glynn. The Claimants, like thousands of others arriving by small boat, all…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Thursday, August 19, 2021
After almost 20 years of presence of the Allied Forces in Afghanistan, the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement in February 2020 on the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan by May 2021. A few weeks before the final US troops were due to leave Afghanistan, the Taliban had already taken control of various main cities. They took over the capital, Kabul, on 15 August 2021, and on the same day the President of Afghanistan left the country.
As seen before with regime…
Content Type: Long Read
Wednesday, August 4, 2021
For many, browsing the internet or checking social media comes with its fair share of being targeted with ads selling “fad diet” subscription-based programmes, magic weight-loss powders, or promising a secret trick to lose weight quickly. Some of the products and programmes sold have been described as scams, with a very real impact for those suffering from eating disorders and those who fall prey to these ads. This is even more problematic due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has seen the…
Content Type: Press release
Thursday, July 22, 2021
Amnesty International, Privacy International and The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) have published a report uncovering NSO Group’s entire corporate structure, tracking the global money trail of both public and private investment into the lucrative spyware company.
Amnesty International and other rights groups have documented dozens of cases of NSO Group’s products being used by repressive governments across the world to put activists, journalists, and opposition…
Content Type: Report
Friday, May 28, 2021
In Somalia, international entities like the US Department of Defense (DoD) and intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations (UN) have used biometrics in the name of counterterrorism, collecting and indefinitely storing biometric data, frequently in the absence of full disclosure or appropritate regulation. These biometric initiatives have had dubious benefits and known detrimental effects on local populations. Nevertheless, most Somalis have little knowledge or say over how their…
Content Type: Report
Friday, May 28, 2021
In Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. Department of Defense developed its biometric program in confluence with US military operations in. Its expansion was tightly linked to the goals of military commanders during the “War on Terror”: to distinguish insurgents and terrorists from the local civilian population. This research shows how the DOD’s biometric programme was developed and implemented without prior assessment of its human rights impact and without the safeguards necessary to prevent its…
Content Type: Report
Friday, May 28, 2021
In Israel/Palestine, the Israeli government has been deploying biometrics, including cutting-edge facial recognition technology, in the name of counter-terrorism. The Israeli state routinely surveils and severely restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement using myriad technologies, including biometrics, which result in furthering the policies of systemic segregation. Since many Palestinians live under Israeli occupation, they have little control over the way their sensitive data is turned…
Content Type: Long Read
Friday, May 28, 2021
Since the September 11th attacks, decision makers across the globe have embraced overreaching surveillance technologies. The global “War on Terror” ushered in and normalized an array of invasive surveillance technologies. Collection and storage of biometrics data and the application of statistical methods to such data have been touted as uniquely suited to twenty-first century threats. Yet, biometrics technologies are not seamless, panoptic technologies that allow for perfect control. They can…
Content Type: Report
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Human rights defenders across the world have been facing increasing threats and harms as result of the use of digital and technological tools used by governments and companies which enable the surveillance, monitoring and tracking of individuals and communities. They are continuously at risk of violence, intimidation and surveillance as a direct consequence of the work they do. Such surveillance has been shown to lead to arbitrary detention, sometimes to torture and possibly to extrajudicial…
Content Type: Report
Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Privacy International has released a report summarising the result of its research into the databases and surveillance tools used by authorities across the UK’s borders, immigration, and citizenship system.
The report uses procurement, contractual, and other open-source data and aims to inform the work of civil society organisations and increase understanding of a vast yet highly opaque system upon which millions of people rely.
It also describes and maps how arms and tech companies, ranging…
Content Type: Long Read
Friday, January 15, 2021
This report is available in English.
La mayoría de los documentos nacionales de identidad y demás documentos emitidos por autoridades estatales incluyen un marcador de género. Estos marcadores suelen recibir el nombre de “marcador de sexo” aunque este término no sea preciso. La presencia de dichos marcadores, especialmente en los certificados de nacimiento, promueve el énfasis de nuestra sociedad en el género como criterio de asignación de identidades, roles y responsabilidades sociales. Al…
Content Type: Long Read
Friday, January 15, 2021
Este informe está disponible en español.
Most national ID or identifying documents include a gender marker. This is often known as a 'sex marker,' even though the term is inaccurate. The presence of such markers, especially on birth certificates, contribute to our society’s emphasis on gender as a criterion for assigning identities, roles and responsibilities within society. With gender being such a determining and dominant identifier, it puts it at the centre of so many arrays of our lives…
Content Type: Long Read
Friday, December 4, 2020
In 2019, we exposed the practices of five menstruation apps that were sharing your most intimate data with Facebook and other third parties. We were pleased to see that upon the publication of our research some of them decided to change their practices. But we always knew the road to effective openness, transparency, informed consent and data minimisation would be a long one when it comes to apps, which for the most part make profit from our menstrual cycle and even sometimes one’s desire to…
Content Type: Long Read
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
All around the world people rely on state support in order to survive. From healthcare, to benefits for unemployment or disability or pensions, at any stage of life we may need to turn to the state for some help. And tech companies have realised there is a profit to be made.
This is why they have been selling a narrative that relying on technology can improve access to and delivery of social benefits. The issue is that governments have been buying it. This narrative comes along with a…
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: Long Read
Thursday, October 15, 2020
As more and more of us feel compelled to cover our faces with masks, companies that work on facial recognition are confronted with a new challenge: how to make their products relevant in an era where masks have gone from being seen as the attribute of those trying to hide to the accessory of good Samaritans trying to protect others.
Facewatch is one of those companies. In May 2020, they announced they had developed a new form of facial recognition technology that allows for the…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
A new report by the UN Working Group on mercenaries analyses the impact of the use of private military and security services in immigration and border management on the rights of migrants, and highlights the responsibilities of private actors in human rights abuses as well as lack of oversight and, ultimately, of accountability of the system.
Governments worldwide have prioritised an approach to immigration that criminalises the act of migration and focuses on security.
Today, borders are not…
Content Type: Case Study
Friday, July 31, 2020
Numerous sexist, mysoginistic, homophobic and racist practices are flourishing online, in ways that are harder for national authorities to stop than when abuse takes place offline. One of these practices is ‘revenge pornography’, which involves online distribution of private sexual images without the consent of the person depicted.
One victim of image based sexual abuse (more commonly known as revenge porn): Chrissy Chambers. Chrissy was 18 years old when her boyfriend convinced her to spend…
Content Type: Long Read
Wednesday, July 8, 2020
Over the last two decades we have seen an array of digital technologies being deployed in the context of border controls and immigration enforcement, with surveillance practices and data-driven immigration policies routinely leading to discriminatory treatment of people and undermining peoples’ dignity.
And yet this is happening with little public scrutiny, often in a regulatory or legal void and without understanding and consideration to the impact on migrant communities at the border and…
Content Type: Case Study
Friday, June 26, 2020
The EU have been using foreign aid budgets, not to lift people out of poverty, but to export surveillance technologies used to repress people’s human rights all over the world.
A wave of anti-immigration fervour has swept across Europe in recent years. As leaders have come to power across Europe either on anti-immigration platforms or having to respond to an anti-immigration sentiment, the EU’s recent policies have been shaped by the drive to stop migration to Europe.
Surveillance…
Content Type: Long Read
Sunday, May 24, 2020
The Chief Surveillance Commissioner, The Rt Hon Sir Christopher Rose’s Annual Report 2011 - 12 did not refer to social networks but to overt investigations using the internet as a surveillance tool, stating that:
“5.17 A frequent response to my Inspectors’ enquiries regarding a reduction in directed surveillance is that ‘overt’ investigations using the Internet suffice. My Commissioners have expressed concern that some research using the Internet may meet the criteria of directed…
Content Type: Long Read
Sunday, May 24, 2020
Online covert activity
3.10 The growth of the internet, and the extent of the information that is now available online, presents new opportunities for public authorities to view or gather information which may assist them in preventing or detecting crime or carrying out other statutory functions, as well as in understanding and engaging with the public they serve. It is important that public authorities are able to make full and lawful use of this information for their statutory purposes. Much…
Content Type: Report
Sunday, May 24, 2020
SUMMARY
In the UK, local authorities* are looking at people’s social media accounts, such as Facebook, as part of their intelligence gathering and investigation tactics in areas such as council tax payments, children’s services, benefits and monitoring protests and demonstrations.
In some cases, local authorities will go so far as to use such information to make accusations of fraud and withhold urgently needed support from families who are living in extreme poverty.
THE PROBLEM
Since 2011…