Advanced Search
Content Type: News & Analysis
Bloomberg reported today that security researchers have identified FinFisher spyware - "one of the world’s best-known and elusive cyber weapons" - in malicious emails sent to Bahraini pro-democracy activists, including a naturalized U.S. citizen who owns gas stations in Alabama, a London-based human rights activist and a British-born economist in Bahrain.
Analysis of the emails by CitizenLab (a project based within the University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs) revealed that…
Content Type: News & Analysis
The first joint report from the Committees on Arms Export Controls (CAEC), released last Friday, highlighted the importance of careful licensing and independent scrutiny for the export of ‘controlled’ goods, to prevent sales that could ‘facilitate internal repression’ in authoritarian regimes abroad. And as we wrote yesterday, the Committees advised that 10 Downing Street should make good on assurances PI was given in March that the problem of unlicensed surveillance exports would be addressed…
Content Type: News & Analysis
The 2012 report of the Committees on Arms Export Controls (CAEC), released last Friday, has raised serious concerns over the government’s approach to arms exports, highlighting the use of British exports to facilitate repression and prolong conflict in authoritarian regimes abroad.
In his oral evidence to the Committees, the Foreign Secretary William Hague, stressed that the government’s position on granting export licences for goods on the Export Control list has not changed:
The long-…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Last Friday the Electronic Frontier Foundation received new information from the US Federal Aviation Administration in response to their FOIA demanding data on certifications and authorizations the agency has issued for the operation of unmanned aircraft.
The information includes extensive details about the specific drone models currently flying in US civilian airspace, including those being used by four local police forces. The North Little Rock Police Department in Arkansas is…
Content Type: Report
This report was submitted to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Under the current version of the draft Communications Data Bill, records of every person or entity with whom any given individual has communicated electronically would be collected continuously and stored for one year. These records would include the time of the communication and the location from which it originated.
The Communications Data Bill raises a number of concerns with regards to the right to privacy under Article 8…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Privacy is internationally recognized as a fundamental right. Yet the confines of the right to privacy are subject to never-ending games of tug-of-war between individuals, governments and corporations. These games are rarely fair – individuals are often under-informed and lack the capacity to assert and protect their privacy, while those who seek to erode it are increasingly overbearing and secretive. This is particularly the case in developing countries, where the absence of adequate legal and…
Content Type: News & Analysis
In the first public admission of its kind, the Home Office's Peter Hill admitted this week that the British government routinely sweeps up the identities of thousands of people in a given area - with a single request to a mobile phone network.
The statement was made during the first hearing of the Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill, at which Mr Hill (Head of Unit for Pursue Policy and Strategy Unit at the Home Office), Charles Farr (Director of the Office for Security and…
Content Type: News & Analysis
This weekend, the Department for Education sponsored an "appathon", allowing attendees access to the National Pupil Database (which holds information like exam results, special education needs, truancy records and eligibility for free school meals on every child at every state school in the country) and inviting people to build "apps".
The database contains over 400 variables and the records of around 600,000 children. With so many variables, it is a relatively simple task to…
Content Type: Report
This report was submitted to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Under the current version of the draft Communications Data Bill, records of every person or entity with whom any given individual has communicated electronically would be collected continuously and stored for one year. These records would include the time of the communication and the location from which it originated.
The Communications Data Bill raises a number of concerns with regards to the right to privacy under Article 8 of…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Mass surveillance affects us all
The draft Communications Data Bill - known as the 'Snoopers' Charter' - will dramatically expand police surveillance powers if it is voted into law. Innocent citizens would have all their communications and online activity monitored, all of the time. The government would store information about who we're texting, what we're searching for on Google and who we're friends with on Facebook. Police and HM Revenue and Customs officers would be able to access this…
Content Type: News & Analysis
The Home Office has been planning a grab for new communications surveillance powers since 2006; today, the Draft Communications Data Bill established in legislative language their ambitions.
Yes, as they will point out, it isn't their the full scope of their ambitions. In 2008, under Labour, they proposed the idea of a vast centralised database of the nation's communications data. In 2009 they abandoned the idea of a central database. Since then, a new government has been elected,…
Content Type: Press release
The government today published a draft version of a bill that, if signed into law in its current form, would force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mobile phone network providers in Britain to install 'black boxes' in order to collect and store information on everyone's internet and phone activity, and give the police the ability to self-authorise access to this information. However, the Home Office failed to explain whether or not companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter will be…
Content Type: News & Analysis
In Homer’s Iliad, the gods Juno and Saturn have great desire for each other, and Saturn wishes to lie with Juno on the top of Mount Ida. Juno protests Saturn’s advances, exclaiming: “What if one of the ever-living gods should see us sleeping together, and tell the others? It would be such a scandal that when I had risen from your embraces I could never show myself inside your house again”. Luckily for Saturn, Juno knows of a place with “good strong doors” where they can meet secretly and…
Content Type: News & Analysis
The APEC Data Privacy Subgroup (DPS) commenced a new five year work programme at a meeting in Moscow in February 2012. This follows the commitment by APEC Leaders in late 2011 to the Cross Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) system as one way implementing the APEC Data Privacy Framework.
The Joint Oversight Panel was formed at the DPS meeting in Moscow and comprises members from the US (chair), Chinese Taipei and Mexico, with the chair of the DPS (from Canada) as alternate – who will…
Content Type: Report
This report is the result of research conducted by researchers at Privacy International, coordinated by the London School of Economics and Political Science. The report was commissioned by the International Development Research Centre.
New technologies such as mobile phones and electronic medical record (EMR) systems promise to transform the provision and management of medicine all over the world. In the U.S. alone, billions are being spent on information technologies for healthcare.
Content Type: News & Analysis
On Thursday 19th April, Privacy International - in partnership with the LSE, the Foundation for Information Policy Research, Open Rights Group and Big Brother Watch - hosted Scrambling for Safety 2012, a discussion of the Home Office's new plans for mass interception in the UK. Around 200 people turned up (despite the sporadic but torrential rain!), and the number of insightful, well-informed questions from the audience proved to us that the Home Office is not going to…
Content Type: News & Analysis
It is an increasingly common tactic of governments to say very little about a proposed policy, wait for opponents to start speaking publicly about it and then seize gleefully upon any error, accusing their opponents of peddling 'myths'. This allows officials to spend more time talking about what the policy isn't, and less time explaining what the policy actually is.
One recent example of this has been the Home Office's approach to its policy for 'modernising' communications surveillance. …
Content Type: News & Analysis
In September last year, David Cameron told the UN general assembly: "As people in north Africa and the Middle East stand up and give voice to their hopes for more open and democratic societies, we have an opportunity – and I would say a responsibility – to help them." The Arab Spring uprisings had provided a chink of light for those living under repressive regimes, and it was now up to western democracies to help them throw open the door to a bright new future.
Yet over the past six…
Content Type: News & Analysis
What do we know?
Very little. The Communication Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP) is going to be included the Queen's Speech next month and we still haven't had public confirmation of the details. What we do know is that there have been secret briefings to MPs designed to scare them into compliance, and secret briefings to industry that were originally designed to calm their fears (but in fact have only served to increase their outrage).
What was previously proposed?
In 2009 the Home…
Content Type: Press release
An internal Liberal Democrat briefing on Home Office plans to massively expand government surveillance was today passed to Privacy International. The document contains significant evasions and distortions about the proposed 'Communications Capabilities Development Programme' (CCDP), and is clearly intended to persuade unconvinced Lib Dem MPs to vote in favour of the proposal.
The document contains a section entitled 'Remember, under Labour' consisting of a list of the previous government's…
Content Type: News & Analysis
For the past 18 months, I've been investigating the export of surveillance technologies from Western countries to despotic regimes, but I never thought I'd see a democratic government proposing to install the kind of mass surveillance system favoured by Al-Assad, Mubarak and Gaddafi. Yet the Home Office's latest plans would allow the authorities unprecedented levels of access to the entire population's phone records, emails, browsing history and activity on social networking sites,…
Content Type: News & Analysis
People often ask me why I investigate the surveillance trade - surely the police and intelligence services need these technologies to prevent serious crime and terrorism? I tell them that I completely agree - targeted surveillance, conducted within strict legal frameworks, can be a socially useful tool. However, vast swathes of the industry are in a different business altogether: mass surveillance.
Mass surveillance is when the state conducts pervasive blanket surveillance of entire…
Content Type: Report
Following on from their 2009 discussion paper, in 2010 the European Commission published a Communication on changes to the 1995 European Union Directive on data protection. The European Union’s 1995 Directive on data protection is a leading regional instrument for privacy and is often the model for other countries across the globe. The Directive has been integral to pushing back against key surveillance and tracking initiaitives by governments and industry.
In this report we respond to that…
Content Type: Report
The US does not have a general overarching privacy law like European Data Directive or the sweeping privacy protections contained in the European declarations of rights. The EU-US accord cites several laws, which it claims, give privacy rights to non-US persons. None of the cited laws offer any real substantive or procedural protections for Europeans. As explained below, the one law – the Privacy Act 5 U.S.C 552a – that could offer some modest protections is tellingly not even mentioned.
But…
Content Type: Report
New technologies such as mobile phones and electronic medical record (EMR) systems promise to transform the provision and management of medicine all over the world. In the U.S. alone, billions are being spent on information technologies for healthcare.
This eHealth revolution could be a boon for patient privacy if the right protections are built into new health information systems; however there are growing worries that privacy and security are being overlooked by designers rushing to deploy…
Content Type: Report
When we think of privacy in the political system we tend to recall historic events
like Watergate, secret files held by governments in war-time, and blacklists. Modern political surveillance is more advanced and sophisticated. In this report we identify some of the modern political surveillance initiatives by governments around the world. We must recognise that all political systems require privacy to function, and devise our policies and build our technologies accordingly.
Content Type: Report
When we think of privacy in the political system we tend to recall historic events like Watergate, secret files held by governments in war-time, and blacklists. Modern political surveillance is more advanced and sophisticated. In this report we identify some of the modern political surveillance initiatives by governments around the world. We must recognise that all political systems require privacy to function, and devise our policies and build our technologies accordingly.
Content Type: Report
This is a memo prepared by Barry Steinhardt of Friends of Privacy USA for Members of the European Parliament regarding the proposed EU-US Agreement PNR.
The proposed agreement regarding Passenger Name Records (PNR) between the United States and the European Union is riddled with faulty assertions and assumptions about US law and the actual operations of the US government.
These faulty assertions and assumptions go to the heart of the agreement and undercut the claims of protections for…
Content Type: Press release
PI, Genewatch and the Council for Responsible Genetics launch the Forensic Genetic Policy Initiative
Today, 60 countries worldwide operate national DNA databases, and at least 34 more are considering putting them in place. The use of DNA evidence in criminal investigations can bring great benefits to society, helping to solve crimes, convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent. However, the mass storage of DNA samples and computerized profiles in databases raises important human rights concerns. Your DNA profile can be used to track you or your relatives. Your DNA sample has the…
Content Type: Report
Following on from their 2009 discussion paper, in 2010 the European Commission published a Communication on changes to the 1995 European Union Directive on data protection. The European Union’s 1995 Directive on data protection is a leading regional instrument for privacy and is often the model for other countries across the globe. The Directive has been integral to pushing back against key surveillance and tracking initiaitives by governments and industry.
In this report we respond to that…