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Content Type: Examples
Greece has extended a coronavirus lockdown on its migrant camps for the fifth time. The move has prompted accusations that the government is using the pandemic to limit the migrants' movement.
The Greek Migration Ministry announced on Saturday that the country's migrant camps would remain under lockdown until at least July 19. The restrictions began over 100 days ago, on March 21.
"By a joint decision of the Ministers of Civil Protection, Health and Immigration and Asylum, the measures to…
Content Type: Examples
Domestic abuse campaigners and victims have accused the government of not valuing the lives of migrant women in forthcoming legislation on the issue.They are urging the government to make “life-saving” changes to the domestic abuse bill, which will be debated for its final stage in parliament on Monday.
A spokesperson for the Home Office called the bill “a game-changing piece of legislation that will transform how we deal with this horrific crime”, adding that the government had announced £76m…
Content Type: Examples
The Santiago Court of Appeals has ruled that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs cannot require migrants to sign a declaration saying they agree to not return to Chile for nine years. The government is now going forward with an appeal stating that this ruling contraditcs a 2018 resolution, says the subsecretary Juan Francisco Galli.
Source: La Tercera
Writer: Juan Manuel Ojeda and Leslie Ayala
Content Type: Examples
Thousands of Muscovites ordered to download a hastily-developed app to enforce their quarantine report that they have been wrongly geolocated and fined and that the app has trapped them into compliance criteria that are impossible to meet. The app, which demands an exceptionally broad range of permission and stores the data on Moscow’s servers for a year, is compulsory for everyone with respiratory disease symptoms. Officials say it has helped keep the city’s death rate as low as 3.8%. Some…
Content Type: Examples
Russian authorities are considering introducing an app that migrant workers will be required to download when they enter the country. Leaked details indicate that the app would contain detailed biometric data, health status, police records, and a “social trustworthiness” rating. It’s unclear whether the app would access other data such as geolocation and user content. Other aspects of surveillance are also expanding in Russia, such as using Moscow’s surveillance camera system to track those…
Content Type: Examples
The findings of Freedom from Torture’s report, based on reviews of transcripts of asylum interviews carried out by the Home Office in 2017 or 2018 and a series of focus groups and interviews involving 25 torture survivors who had attended asylum interviews, shows they were often prevented from giving a full account of their experiences or denied the opportunity to explain their evidence.
The report states that some Home Office case workers were found to employ “poor questioning technique” and…
Content Type: Examples
Up to 30 charities and organisations have written to home secretary Priti Patel calling for a number of amendments on Tuesday - a year exactly until the scheme ends.
Under current arrangements, EU citizens have been told to apply by June if they wish to continue living and working in Britain.The letter said: “We are concerned that the government has not taken appropriate steps or made the adequate adjustments to the EUSS necessary to protect EU citizens and family members from Covid-19. We…
Content Type: Advocacy
Privacy International responded to the call for submissions on Zimbabwe’s Cyber Security and Data Protection Bill, 2019.
According to its Memorandum, the Bill seeks to “consolidate cyber related offences and provide for data protection with due regard to the Declaration of Rights under the Constitution and the public and national interest.” The Bill also proposes the establishment of a Cyber Security Centre and a Data Protection Authority.
In its submission, PI applauds the positive aspects…
Content Type: Video
The incorporation of new technologies to electoral processes is a phenomenon with a global and exponential growth. Despite its benefits, online campaigning is not without challenges, and can pose threats to transparency and equity in electoral competition. Given the role of elections as foundational pillars of the democratic system and a key gateway for the exercise of fundamental civil rights, these implications must be assessed with care and through specific tools.
We at PI, together…
Content Type: News & Analysis
In September 2019, PI published the report Your Mental Health for Sale. Our investigation looked into popular mental health websites and their data sharing practices.
Our findings suggest that, at the time of the research, most websites we looked at were using third party tracking for advertising purposes, sometimes relying on programmatic advertising technologies such as Real Time Bidding (RTB), sharing personal data with potentially thousands of actors. Some websites were also found sharing…
Content Type: News & Analysis
A unanimous ruling by the Court of Appeal confirmed earlier findings that the rigid monthly income assessment regime set up by the Department of Work and Pensions - the entity responsible for issuing benefits - to calculate the amount of benefits to be paid out resulted in significant and unwarranted cash losses to benefits claimants. The Court of Appeal found that the failure by the Department of Work and Pensions to rectify the issue was unlawful.
The case is a clear example…
Content Type: Video
When exposed to online political ads, individuals are usually - though not always - able to reliably identify the political actors behind the ad. However, there is little transparency in relation to the targeting mechanisms operating behind some of the ads - an users are rightly concerned.
Behind the social media curtain, political actors avail themselves of data collected through a range of sources to infer additional data about their voters. This…
Content Type: Advocacy
The entire election cycle is increasingly data dependent. This is particularly the case with political campaigns which are ever more digital and data driven. This campaign environment presents novel challenges due to the scale and range of data available together with the multiplicity, complexity and speed of profiling and targeting techniques. All of this is characterised by its opacity and lack of accountability. Existing legal frameworks designed to curtail this exploitation often also fall…
Content Type: News & Analysis
At a time where the mass surveillance of protests has been at the forefront, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights released a timely report on the impact of new technologies on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of assemblies, including peaceful protests.
The new report highlights the strong ties between protest and privacy and warns that “…the use of some such technologies to surveil or crack down on protesters can lead to human rights violations, including…
Content Type: Case Study
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
What Do We Know?
Palantir & the NHS
What You Don’t Know About Palantir in the UK
Steps We’re Taking
The Way Forward
This article was written by No Tech For Tyrants - an organisation that works on severing links between higher education, violent tech & hostile immigration environments.
Content Type: Video
Gus talks to two of PI's lawyers - Ailidh and Ioannis - to find out why we're telling the EU commission to block the merger.
Find out more and sign the petition at: pvcy.org/notwatch
Music: Last Chance Saloon by Sepia
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Content Type: Case Study
Facial recognition technology (FRT) is fairly present in our daily lives, as an authentication method to unlock phones for example. Despite having useful applications, FRT can also be just another technology used by those in power to undermine our democracies and carry out mass surveillance. The biometric data collected by FRT can be as uniquely identifying as a fingerprint or DNA. The use of this technology by third parties, specially without your consent, violates your right to privacy.
The…
Content Type: Long Read
In April 2018, Amazon acquired “Ring”, a smart security device company best known for its video doorbell, which allows Ring users to see, talk to, and record people who come to their doorsteps.
What started out as a company pitch on Shark Tank in 2013, led to the $839 million deal, which has been crucial for Amazon to expand on their concept of the XXI century smart home. It’s not just about convenience anymore, interconnected sensors and algorithms promise protection and provide a feeling of…
Content Type: Explainer
The internet is filled with guides on how to file a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. Depending on the country you are in, it is likely that a local NGO – or your national freedom of information authority. – will have come up with one. The Global Investigative Journalism Network has an excellent list of FOI resources available in many countries across every continent. We really recommend you take a look at it; many of the FOI guides we love are in that repository.At PI we equally spend much…
Content Type: Case Study
The Ugandan government has a running contract with the Chinese tech giant, Huawei, to supply and install CCTV cameras along major highways within the capital, Kampala, and other cities.
While details of the contract remain concealed from the public, the Uganda Police Force (UPF) released a statement, simply confirming its existing business partnership for telecommunication and surveillance hardware, and software between the security force and Huawei. However, it is not clear whether the…
Content Type: Case Study
Well into the 21st century, Serbia still does not have a strong privacy culture, which has been left in the shadows of past regimes and widespread surveillance. Even today, direct police and security agencies’ access to communications metadata stored by mobile and internet operators makes mass surveillance possible.
However, a new threat to human rights and freedoms in Serbia has emerged. In early 2019, the Minister of Interior and the Police Director announced that Belgrade will receive “a…
Content Type: Report
The majority of people today carry a mobile phone with them wherever they go, which they use to stay connected to the world. Yet an intrusive tool, known as an International Mobile Subscriber Identity catcher, or “IMSI catcher” is a form of surveillance equipment that enables governments and state authorities to conduct indiscriminate surveillance of mobile devices, and by extension, on users.
IMSI catchers can do much more than monitor and intercept mobile communications. Designed to imitate…
Content Type: Examples
Although the Home Office does not record ethnicity data for detainees, analysis of nationalities of those recently held within the immigration detention estate found that citizens from countries with predominantly black and brown populations are held for substantially longer periods than those from predominantly white countries.
Around a third – approximately a 1,000 – being held in immigration detention centres were freed at the height of the coronavirus pandemic to try and stop the spread of…
Content Type: Examples
Immigration rules that have left 1 million migrant workers in the UK at risk of destitution because they cannot claim universal credit should be suspended on public health grounds during the pandemic, a cross-party group of MPs has recommended.
The work and pensions select committee said the no recourse to public funds (NRPF) rule – which hit the headlines recently when Boris Johnson appeared not to be aware of its existence – meant many foreign nationals faced a choice of staying at home in…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Name: Google/Fitbit merger
Age: Gestating
Appearance: A bit dodgy. One of the world’s biggest tech giants, trying to purchase a company that makes fitness tracking devices, and therefore has huge amounts of our health data.
I don’t get it. Basically Google is trying to buy Fitbit. As if Google doesn’t already have enough data about us, it now wants huge amounts of health data too.
Oh, Fitbit, that’s that weird little watch-type-thing that people get for Christmas, wear for about a month…
Content Type: Guide step
No aceptes solicitudes de amistad de gente desconocida.
Avísale a la gente que no quieres que publiquen tu sin tu consentimiento.
No publiques fotos de otras personas sin su consentimiento.
No publiques información delicada en tus fotos o en las leyendas.
No reveles tu ubicación/asegúrate de que los detalles en el fondo no revelen tu ubicación.
No uses hashtags que podrían revelar datos privados (o la ubicación).
Ten cautela cuando publiques fotos de tus hijos en las redes sociales.
Si…
Content Type: Guide step
Don’t accept friend requests from unknown people.
Let people know that you don’t want your picture posted without your consent.
Don’t post photos of other people without their consent.
Don’t post sensitive information in your photos or captions.
Don’t reveal your location/make sure the location is not revealed by background details.
Don’t use hashtags that may reveal private data (or the location).
Be wary when posting photos of your kids on social media.
If you log into your Facebook…
Content Type: Guide step
En tu navegador ve a la esquina superior derecha de la página de Facebook. Haz clic en Configuración y Privacidad y luego en Privacidad. A la izquierda vas a ver un campo llamado Apps y sitios web donde podrás ver cuáles aplicaciones tienen acceso a tus datos actualmente. Puedes modificar la lista si seleccionas Ver y editar. Recomendamos mantener la lista al mínimo y eliminar cualquier aplicación que no reconozcas o que hayas dejado de usar.