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Content Type: Case Study
In Peru, you get asked for your fingerprint and your ID constantly - when you’re getting a new phone line installed or depositing money in your bank account – and every Peruvian person has an ID card, and is included in the National Registry of Identity – a huge database designed to prove that everyone is who they say they are. After all, you can change your name, but not your fingerprint.
However, in 2019 the National Police of Peru uncovered a criminal operation that was doing just that:…
Content Type: Case Study
There are 29.4 million refugees and asylum seekers across the globe today. These are people who have fled their countries due to conflict, violence or persecution seeking protection in safer environments.
People have protected those in need fleeing from dire situations since antiquity. However, over recent years, European countries have become increasingly hostile towards refugees - treating them as criminals instead of people in need.
In 2017, German authorities passed a…
Content Type: Case Study
The increasing deployment of highly intrusive technologies in public and private spaces such as facial recognition technologies (FRT) threaten to impair our freedom of movement. These systems track and monitor millions of people without any regulation or oversight.
Tens of thousands of people pass through the Kings Cross Estate in London every day. Since 2015, Argent - the group that runs the Kings Cross Estate - were using FRT to track all of those people.
Police authorities rushed in secret…
Content Type: Video
You’re a witness or a victim or a suspect of a crime; or even just travelling going on holiday. Officials demand your phone, then disappear with it. What happened to your phone? What happened to your data? What will happen to you?
We all generate vast amounts of data using our mobile phones - more than most of us are aware of - and that data has become increasingly attractive to law enforcement agencies around the world, enabled by ‘extraction technologies’ supplied by companies like…
Content Type: Case Study
In 2015, a man in Connecticut was charged with murdering his wife based on evidence from her Fitbit. Richard Dabate, the accused, told the police that a masked assailant came into the couple’s suburban home at around 9am on 23 December 2015, overpowering Dabate then shooting his wife as she returned through the garage.
However, the victim’s fitness tracker told a different story. According to data from the device, which uses a digital pedometer to track the wearer’s steps, Dabate’s wife was…
Content Type: Case Study
In early May 2019, it was revealed that a spyware, exploiting a vulnerability in Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging app, had been installed onto Android and iOS phones. The spyware could be used to turn on the camera and mic of the targeted phones and collect emails, messages, and location data. Citizen Lab, the organization that discovered the vulnerability, said that the spyware was being used to target journalists and human rights advocates in different countries around the world. The spyware…
Content Type: News & Analysis
On 24 October 2019, the Swedish government submitted a new draft proposal to give its law enforcement broad hacking powers. On 18 November 2019, the Legal Council (“Lagråd”), an advisory body assessing the constitutionality of laws, approved the draft proposal.
Privacy International believes that even where governments conduct hacking in connection with legitimate activities, such as gathering evidence in a criminal investigation, they may struggle to demonstrate that hacking as…
Content Type: News & Analysis
A new UK Times report claims that “WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media platforms will be forced to disclose encrypted messages from suspected terrorists, paedophiles and other serious criminals under a new treaty between the UK and the US.”
Several other media outlets have followed up on the report, with headlines such as “UK and US set to sign treaty allowing UK police ‘back door’ access to WhatsApp and other ‘end to end encrypted’ messaging platforms”.
While the…
Content Type: Advocacy
Tanto la privacidad como la seguridad son esenciales para proteger a los individuos, su autonomía y su dignidad. El detrimento de la privacidad implica el detrimento de la seguridad de los individuos, sus dispositivos y la infraestructura de la que forman parte. La gente necesita privacidad para sentirse libremente segura y proteger su información, así como para gozar plenamente de otros derechos.
Una cantidad cada vez mayor de Gobiernos en el mundo está recurriendo también al hackeo para…
Content Type: Advocacy
Privacy and security are both essential to protecting individuals, including their autonomy and dignity. Undermining privacy undermines the security of individuals, their devices and the broader infrastructure. People need privacy to freely secure themselves, their information, and fully enjoy other rights.
A growing number of governments around the world are embracing hacking to facilitate their surveillance activities. When governments hack for surveillance purposes, they seek to…
Content Type: Advocacy
Introduction
Why We Are So Concerned about Government Hacking for Surveillance
Scope of Our Safeguards
1. Legality
2. Security and Integrity of Systems
3. Necessity and Proportionality
4. Judicial Authorisation
5. Integrity of information
6. Notification
7. Destruction and Return of Data
8. Oversight and Transparency
9. Extraterritoriality
10. Effective Remedy
Commentary on each
1. Legality
2. Security and Integrity of Systems
3. Necessity and Proportionality
4.…
Content Type: Advocacy
On 20 March 2015, Privacy International and Open Rights Group submitted comments on the UK Government's draft Equipment Interference Code of Practice.
The UK has been hacking for over a decade, yet the release of the draft Code of Practice is the first time the UK intelligence services have sought public authorisation for their activities. Indeed, it is the first time the intelligence services have publicly acknowledged they engage in hacking.
Unfortunately, the draft Code of…