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Content Type: Key Resources
The fact of the matter is: your ID system will exclude, and the people it’s excluding will be the most vulnerable and marginalised.
Content Type: Advocacy
Read in English
Nosotros, las organizaciones de la sociedad civil y los individuos abajo firmantes, instamos al Banco Mundial y a otras organizaciones internacionales a que tomen medidas inmediatas para cesar las actividades que promueven modelos perjudiciales de sistemas de identificación digital (ID digital).
Los firmantes de esta carta se encuentran en diferentes países, trabajan con diversas comunidades y aportan una amplia gama de conocimientos. Entre este grupo, hay muchas…
Content Type: Advocacy
We, the undersigned civil society organizations and individuals, urge the World Bank and other international organizations to take immediate steps to cease activities that promote harmful models of digital identification systems (digital ID).
The signatories of this letter are located in different countries, work with diverse communities, and bring a wide range of expertise. Among this group, there are many shared concerns and similar experiences documenting the harmful impacts…
Content Type: Course Section
Knowledge gap?
Research finding: In 2018, a study by the NGO Doteveryone on digital understanding found a “major understanding gap” of British citizens when it comes to digital technologies. For example, they found that 83% of British don’t realise that information shared about them by others is collected, and 70% don’t realise free apps make money from data.
Finding: In 2020, another study by Doteveryone found that while the public’s understanding of data collection has increased, it still…
Content Type: Course Section
Building on our experience and research, in this chapter we introduce a number of good practices when educating about data: what we found works well and what educators should pay attention to. The chapters after this then provide advice on how to identify 'good' educational resources on data, and on creating your own resources.
Content Type: Course Section
Educators are keen to teach, learners are keen to learn. As we covered in previous chapters, the learning gaps are clear. Many citizens are unaware of the ways in which their data is used, data systems function and how they influence their lives and our societies. These aspects crucially need to be included when educating about digital technologies. But there’s another gap too: educators don’t know where to find teaching resources.
Content Type: Course Section
In this chapter, we will give a brief overview of the landscape of online ‘critical data literacy resources’, present a database that collects such resources and recommend some example resources for different types of learners. While there are also ‘traditional’ formats of teaching material available, for example textbooks or worksheets, our research and thus this chapter focusses on online resources.
Online resources can have various formats: websites, videos, games, podcasts, online courses,…
Content Type: Course Section
We often get asked by others who are interested in creating educational resources about data, what they should consider as they develop their own critical data literacy resources for sharing with others.
Content Type: Long Read
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
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…
Content Type: News & Analysis
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: Video
Nour El Arnaout is a division manager at the Global Health Insitute at the American University of Beirut, where she also co-ordinates the Institutes's E-Sahha programme focussed on e-health and digital health. She has more than 7 years experience in projects and programmes management, operational management and research, and leads the implementation of large scale field based projects in underserved communities in Lebanon including refugee settlements. She is working on a project called: The…
Content Type: News & Analysis
The relationship between privacy and access to abortion care
In 1973, in the state of Texas, it was a criminal offence to “procure or attempt” an abortion except if the purpose was “saving the life of the mother.” This law was enacted in 1854 by the Texas state legislature, and was part of a wave of provisions criminalising access to abortion care that was gaining ground across the U.S in the mid-1800s. It is worth highlighting that these laws were being passed at a time when women in the U.S…
Content Type: Long Read
In the wake of the recent news of the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the ruling of Roe v Wade in its ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, headlines have been dominated by conversations around privacy and fears of how the criminalisation of abortion care and surveillance by law enforcement will play out in a tech driven world.
This discussion is increasingly important as governments move towards digitising their healthcare systems and as more individuals choose to…
Content Type: Long Read
The global COVID-19 health crisis not only induced a public health crisis, but has led to severe social, economic and educational crises which have laid bare any pre-existing gaps in social protection policies and frameworks. Measures identified as necessary for an effective public health response such as lockdowns have impacted billions workers and people's ability to sustain their livelihood worldwide, with countries seeing unprecedented levels of applications for welfare benefits support,…
Content Type: Long Read
The same day that the United Nations General Assembly convened an emergency special session to respond to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early March, a very different set of negotiations was underway in another U.N. conference room. More than two years after its establishment, the Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communication Technologies for Criminal Purposes (hereinafter the Ad Hoc Committee) held its…
Content Type: Advocacy
In our submission we outline our concerns with the industry as a result of extensive technical research and complaints taken to data protection authorities in Europe as a result.
Data brokers must specifically be included in "actors in scope."
We recommend that "data brokers" are specifically included in the list of "actors in scope". A data broker is a company that collects, buys and sells personal data and this is often how they earn their primary revenue. It is a term that is entering…
Content Type: Advocacy
Privacy International (PI) welcomes the call of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants to assess the human rights impact of current and newly established border management measures with the aim of identifying effective ways to prevent human rights violations at international borders, both on land and at sea.
The issues highlighted in the call for submissions are ones that PI has been investigating, reporting and monitoring as part of our campaigns demanding a human rights…
Content Type: Examples
The Burkina Faso government cut off internet access across the country following protests demanding the resignation of president Roch Marc Christian Kabore. Insurgents have attacked military positions as well as gold-mining operations. A government statement said the outage was extended under a legal provision relating to national defence and public security.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-25/burkina-faso-extends-internet-shutdown-before-nov-27-protests?sref=Hjm5biAW Internet…
Content Type: Examples
On January 5, 2022 the Kazakhstan government shut down the internet nationwide in response to widespread civil unrest after the government's removal of a price cap led liquid natural gas prices to rise sharply. Government use of a kill switch to block internet access is rising as a way of suppressing dissent and exercising social control; other examples include Iran, Sudan, Egypt, China, and Uganda. Kazakh law permits the government to temporarily suspend communications networks; much of the…
Content Type: Examples
On December 25, 2021, Sudanese security forces shot and killed four pro-democracy protesters and wounded hundreds of others who, among tens of thousands of people, defied a security lockdown and telecommunications network shutdowns to demonstrate against military rule, AFP News reports. Security forces installed new CCTV cameras on major thoroughfares in advance of the protests, which demanded a transition to a civilian government. Activists have also condemned sexual attacks on women and girls…
Content Type: Examples
Following a complaint from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the country's attorney general has said the Shin Bet security agency's use of mobile phone tracking technology to monitor and threaten Palestinian protesters at Jerusalem's Al Aqsa Mosque in May 2021 was a legitimate security tool, Josef Federman reports at ABC News. Shin Bet sent a text message to both Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem and Palestinian citizens of Israel who were determined to be in the area of the…
Content Type: Examples
Just as China uses technology system called "Integrated Joint Operations Platform" to control and surveil the persecuted population of Uighurs while restricting their movement and branding dissent as "terrorism", the Israeli military is using facial recognition and a massive database of personal information to control millions of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. In November 2021, NSO Group's Pegasus spyware was found on the phones of six Palestinian human rights activists, three of whom…
Content Type: Examples
The Israeli minister of public security has joined police in denying claims in an article in Calcalist that the country's police force have used NSO Group's Pegasus software to spy on the phones of people who led protests against former premier Benjamin Netanyahu. Calcalist reported that the surveillance was carried out without court supervision or oversight of how the data was used. The daily Haaretz newspaper also reported that it had seen a 2013 invoice in which NSO billed police @@2.7…
Content Type: Examples
Ukraine and Russia are both weaponising facial recognition - but Russia is using it to hunt down anti-war protesters, holding and sometimes torturing anyone who refuses to be photographed, while Ukraine is using software donated by Clearview AI to help find Russian infiltrators at checkpoints, identify the dead and reunite families. Russia's widespread surveillance means that activists can be followed and arrested anywhere. In an approved, peaceful anti-government rally in Moscow in 2019,…
Content Type: Examples
Footage captured by Bloomberg shows that police are arresting anti-war protesters in Russia and scrolling through their phones.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-03-07/russian-police-search-protesters-phones-make-arrests-video
Writer: Kommersant
Publication: Bloomberg TV
Publication date: 2022-03-07
Content Type: Examples
Based on a draft methodology from Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry, Kommersant business daily reports that Rostec's data subsidiary, Natsionalny Tsentr Informatizatsii, is developing software that will use machine learning to detect and prevent mass unrest. The software will analyse news reports, social media postings, public transport data, and video surveillance footage; if it fails to prevent mass unrest it is expected to direct the crowd's movements to stop it from escalating. The…