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Content Type: News & Analysis
If you were to buy ‘Anna Karenina’ online, you would be told that people who bought Tolstoy’s classic also bought Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’. But if you've just read an 848 page epic Russian novel, do you really want your follow up to be a 1,008 page epic Russian novel? Maybe you want to read something very different next, maybe some contemporary American short stories, such as ’No one belongs here more than you’ by Miranda July? But you know, I don't think the…
Content Type: News & Analysis
We are on the verge of a revolution in government surveillance powers.
Previously it was simple. Governments demanded access to our homes. Then our communications. Then they demanded access to whatever companies held on us. Then they complained that technology was making this harder, and demanded that technology be designed for them. With every step, safeguards were reduced.
Next governments will demand that companies betray their users and use our technologies to compromise us.
In…
Content Type: News & Analysis
This article originally appeared in The Guardian's Comment Is Free section.
News of the legal dispute between Apple and the FBI has made headlines across the world. The dispute stems from the FBI’s investigation of the 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. As part of its investigation, the FBI obtained an iPhone used by one of the deceased shooters, Syed Farook. The data on the iPhone is encrypted and the FBI wants Apple to create new software that…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Privacy International and ARTICLE 19 last week submitted to members of the Parliament of Ghana's Defence and Interior Committee calling for it to abandon rushing through a controversial new surveillance Bill. The Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunication Messages Bill (2015) allows the interception of all communications for the undefined purposes of “protecting national security” and “fighting crime generally.” Announced on February 19th 2016, the committee in charge of pushing it…
Content Type: Press release
Today the Investigatory Powers Bill had its second reading in the House of Commons. Instead of listening to negative public response to the Bill, and evolving EU law precedent, the UK Government continues to fully advocate for the Bill's prompt passage through Parliament.
Privacy International Director of Campaigns, Harmit Kambo said:
"Today's second reading debate was a missed opportunity to put a brake on new surveillance powers that fundamentally shift the balance of power between…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Surveillance companies and government officials from across the world are gathering in the UK this week at the invitation of the Home Office for the UK’s “Premier Security and Law Enforcement Event’, one week after the controversial spying legislation, entitled the Investigatory Powers Bill, had its first reading in Parliament.
Delegates and companies will be attending the three-day long ‘Security and Policing’ trade show in Farnborough, the historical centre of the UK’s aerospace industry.…
Content Type: News & Analysis
A new illegal spying scandal in Colombia involving the National Police has brought about the resignation of the Chief of the National Police, set off an investigation by the country’s Inspector General and brought the issue of illegal surveillance by Colombian authorities back into the national discussion.
With another institution engulfed in a spying scandal, it begs the question: just how many more of these can Colombia take before something finally changes?
Privacy International’s report…
Content Type: News & Analysis
This week will see the right to privacy take center stage at the UN in Geneva.
The UN Special rapporteur on the right to privacy will present his first report to the UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday 9 March. Meanwhile the Human Rights Committee will review the records of surveillance and the right to privacy of South Africa and Sweden among others.
The new Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy
A year ago the Human Rights Council established the mandate of the Special…
Content Type: News & Analysis
The Investigatory Powers Bill introduced on Tuesday 1 March contains the same range of ‘bulk powers’ envisaged in the earlier draft: bulk interception warrants; bulk acquisition warrants; bulk equipment interference warrants; and bulk personal dataset warrants.
These powers, if adopted as currently envisaged in the Bill, would codify a practice of mass, untargeted surveillance by the UK intelligence services.
In the last couple of years, some of the mass surveillance powers used by…
Content Type: Press release
Privacy International and Human Rights Watch have submitted a briefing to a US court, arguing that compelling Apple to build new software for the FBI will be a dangerous game changer in the security of the technology we rely on every day. If the FBI wins its case against Apple, it will open the floodgates for governments across the world to make similar demands. Compelling technology companies to weaken the security of their products and services …
Content Type: News & Analysis
Today, Privacy International is publishing the result of a global effort to benchmark surveillance policies and practices in the countries that are part of the Privacy International Network. We're calling it the 'State of Surveillance'.
We designed a survey of questions based on some key issues: statistics about the communications infrastructure of the country; what civil society organisations and groups that analyse privacy issues; the international and domestic legal framework…
Content Type: Long Read
Today, Privacy International is publishing the result of a global effort to benchmark surveillance policies and practices in the countries that are part of the Privacy International Network. We’re calling it the ‘State of Surveillance’.
We designed a survey of questions based on some key issues: statistics about the communications infrastructure of the country; what civil society organisations and groups that analyse privacy issues; the international and domestic legal framework regulating…
Content Type: Long Read
It was summer 2014 when we first came across the acronym TRD while sifting through documents from the company Nokia Siemens Networks (Nokia) that had been leaked to Privacy International. The acronym was explained in the documents: it stood for Technical Research Department.
What we learned from the leak is the TRD had been purchasing an interception management system, a monitoring centre and an X25 network, a legacy technology allowing dial-up internet access. The first two technologies gave…
Content Type: Press release
Privacy International today publishes a new investigation, based on exclusive documents, exposing the sale of European surveillance technologies to a secret unit of Egypt's intelligence infrastructure.
The Technical Research Department (TRD) is an independent unit within the General Intelligence Service (GIS), accountable only to the President. According to sources, the TRD has the biggest budget for surveillance technologies of any Egyptian government body. Such large public expenditure…
Content Type: News & Analysis
On Tuesday (16th February 2016) Apple posted a message to their customers stating that the company had been ordered by the FBI to “make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation.” Apple are currently opposing this order. A fascinating debate is currently playing out in the media about whether Apple should comply with or resist the FBI's demands.
Whatever…
Content Type: Press release
In response to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ruling today that GCHQ's hacking is lawful, we have issued the following press statement:
"We are disappointed by the IPT’s judgment today, which has found Government hacking lawful based on a broad interpretation of a law dating back to 1994, when the internet and mobile phone technology were in their infancy.
Until we brought this case, GCHQ would neither confirm nor deny that it was they were engaging in mass hacking of…
Content Type: Long Read
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (“IPT”) today held that GCHQ hacking of computers, mobile devices and networks is lawful, wherever it occurs around the world. We are disappointed that the IPT has not upheld our complaint and we will be challenging its findings.
Our complaint is the first UK legal challenge to state-sponsored hacking, an exceptionally intrusive form of surveillance. We contended that GCHQ hacking operations were incompatible with democratic principles and human rights…
Content Type: Press release
Today’s report by the Joint Committee on the Investigatory Powers Bill is the third committee report that concludes that the Home Office has failed to provide a coherent surveillance framework.
The Joint Committee on the Investigatory Powers Bill today published a 198 page report following a short consultation period between November and January. Their key findings are that:
- the definitions in the bill need much work, including a meaningful and comprehensible…
Content Type: News & Analysis
The problems with thematic warrants and why they should be removed from the UK Government’s Investigatory Powers Bill
We currently have the rare opportunity to scrutinise and debate the powers that law enforcement, the security and intelligence agencies and public bodies should have to interfere with our private communications, our devices and our digital lives. These powers are being enshrined and expanded upon in the draft Investigatory Powers Bill (IP Bill), currently under scrutiny by the…
Content Type: Press release
Gus Hosein, Executive Director, Privacy International said:
“Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has today slammed the Government’s draft Investigatory Powers Bill for its lack of transparency, lack of clarity and lack of privacy protections. We urge the Home Office to take on board the wide ranging criticisms that the tech sector, civil society, and now even the Parliamentary committee that oversees the surveillance capabilities of the intelligence agencies, have made of…
Content Type: News & Analysis
How not to do data-driven due diligence
A powerful new VICE News investigation has blown open the secretive world of risk management and the most influential database you've never heard of: World-Check.
Over 300 government and intelligence agencies, 49 of the 50 biggest banks, and 9 of the top 10 global law firms use World-Check to conduct due diligence, including checking compliance with anti-terrorism financing and sanctions laws. World-Check gathers and analyses open source…
Content Type: Press release
Privacy International welcomes the Committee’s report on the draft Investigatory Powers Bill (IP Bill). The report mirrors what many from across the technology sector and civil society have been saying: the lack of clarity in the draft Bill risks undermining security and privacy.
The Committee encountered almost universal confusion regarding the meaning of “Internet Connection Records” and what the collection of such records would entail. …
Content Type: News & Analysis
In 2015 the United Nations' human rights mechanisms significantly increased their capacity to monitor and assess states' compliance with their obligations around the right to privacy. Notably, the Human Rights Council established the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, filling a significant gap in the international human rights protection system. Meanwhile, the Human Rights Committee put surveillance laws and practices in a range of countries under close scrutiny, making…
Content Type: News & Analysis
As we mark the 750th anniversary of the first parliament called in Britain, its time for intelligence agencies to tell the truth.
After the fall of the Berlin wall, the new German government dedicated its commitment to democracy by physically building transparency into the political process - the impressive glass cupola of the Reichstag, the expansive glass walls of the ministry buildings and in the chancellery all encourage public curiosity and…
Content Type: News & Analysis
The major overhaul of data protection laws in Europe is finally over, after three years of arduous and sustained political and lobbying activity by all those with a major stake and interest, including us at Privacy International (See our initial analysis of the two laws in 2012). We welcome this long overdue closure, but is this 91-articled, 200-paged piece of legislation been worth the enormous effort and no doubt millions of euros, dollars and pounds spent on it?
The legislative package…
Content Type: Press release
Statement by European Digital Rights (EDRi), Bits of Freedom, Digitale Gesellschaft e.V, Digital Rights Ireland and Privacy International following the vote of the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee on the Data Protection
In January 2012, the European Commission, following extensive consultations, published a draft Regulation and a Directive to create a strong framework for data protection in the EU. The initiative had three priorities – modernisation of the legal framework for…
Content Type: News & Analysis
In an enormous breakthrough for those seeking transparency and accountability to the shadowy surveillance industry, the Swiss Government has been forced to publish the list of export licenses for surveillance technologies and other equipment, including details of their cost and destination.
The decision by the Federal Information and Data Protection Commissioner comes on the heels of consistent pressure from Privacy International, Swiss journalists, and several Members of Parliament on…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Sometimes it takes an unexpected stranger to remind you what you have, and what you are at risk of losing. Roman Zakharov, a Russian publisher who challenged Russia’s surveillance legislation, is that stranger for many Brits and Europeans. The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights judgement on Friday 4 December 2015 was remarkable, not because it tore up the rule book on the jurisprudence surrounding state surveillance in the Council of Europe, but because it followed…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Internet Connection Records are a new form of communications data created by the Investigatory Powers Bill at Parts 3 and 4. They constitute an unlawful interference with privacy with the ability to provide a highly detailed record of the activities of individuals, profiling their internet habits.
Clause 62 of the Investigatory Powers Bill (“IP Bill”) permits a wide range of public authorities to collect Internet Connection Records, however throughout debates on this highly controversial new…
Content Type: Press release
This is Privacy International's submission in response to the Science and Technology Committee's call for evidence on the draft Investigatory Powers Bill.