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Content Type: Examples
Leaked messages show that Shirion Collective, a pro-Israel surveillance network that claims its "Maccabee" AI tool can identify and track targets, is branching out from the UK to Australia. The group, like others such as Canary Mission, claims to fight antisemitism, mostly by identifying individuals online. The results place the named individuals at risk of attacks and intimidate activists and academics.https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/jan/30/pro-israel-group-shirion-collective-australian…
Content Type: Examples
Police in Queensland photographed peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters in Logan in December 2023 and recorded the licence plate numbers of cars displaying Palestinian flags. When politicians and others objected, police defended the practice by saying that some threats require "significant threat and risk assessments" and that recording people and vehicles using body-worn cameras, mobile devices, and other means is normal practice.https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/19/queensland-…
Content Type: Examples
The FBI is using databases of location data and facial recognition technology to automate finding and charging participants in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol who have so far escaped identification and arrest. Few legal protections stand in the way of this type of digital surveillance. The first of the more than 1,200 insurrectionists charged to date were those whose social media postings or tips from third parties made them obvious suspects. More recently, the FBI has found new…
Content Type: Examples
Over 60 US cities and counties use Fusus, a "police technology platform that merges public and private cameras with predictive policing and other surveillance tools". Private surveillance camera owners are encouraged to enroll in a police-led program that enables the police to control these cameras. The result is an expanstion of policed spaces and integration of all private and public surveillance systems in one comprehensive dragnet. And Fusus' platform does not stop at integrating CCTV…
Content Type: Examples
Notorious military tech company Anduril is pushing its technology to the border surveillance market. Along the US-Mexico border, its surveillance towers "use an artificial intelligence system called Lattice to autonomously identify, detect and track “objects of interest”, such as humans or vehicles. The cameras pan 360 degrees and can detect a human from 2.8km away." But border surveillance technology has been shown to lead people to lengthier and more dangerous routes as they seek to avoid…
Content Type: Report
Over the past years, data retention regulation imposing generalised and indiscriminate data retention obligations to telecommunication companies and Internet service provides has been introduced in various jurisdictions across the world. As the data retention practices across the world have evolved this new report is an attempt to shed some light on the current state of affairs in data retention regulation across ten key jurisdictions. Privacy International has consulted with human…
Content Type: Advocacy
In PI’s view the Revised Draft is a significant step back to the already weakened previous draft. Among the many concerns that we highlight in this analysis, we are particularly dismayed by the deletion of a principle on privacy, data protection and confidentiality in Article 3. In all previous drafts, the inclusion of such provision reflected the importance that data protection and privacy plays in any effective, modern public health policies. Failing to keep a specific principle on privacy…
Content Type: Report
The methodology employed for this report consists primarily of in-depth interviews held with grassroots political workers and representatives of collectives. The researchers interviewed 14 individuals from various social justice causes such as womens’ rights, climate change, transgender rights, students’ rights and the right to universal internet access in Pakistan. The experiences they have shared with the interviewers along with the real-time developments in the country’s law and order…
Content Type: Advocacy
Why the EU AI Act fails migration
The EU AI Act seeks to provide a regulatory framework for the development and use of the most ‘risky’ AI within the European Union. The legislation outlines prohibitions for ‘unacceptable’ uses of AI, and sets out a framework of technical, oversight and accountability requirements for ‘high-risk’ AI when deployed or placed on the EU market.
Whilst the AI Act takes positive steps in other areas, the legislation is weak and even enables dangerous systems in the…
Content Type: Advocacy
Generative AI models are based on indiscriminate and potentially harmful data scrapingExisting and emergent practices of web-scraping for AI is rife with problems. We are not convinced it stands up to the scrutiny and standards expected by existing law. If the balance is got wrong here, then people stand to have their right to privacy further violated by new technologies.The approach taken by the ICO towards web scraping for generative AI models may therefore have important downstream…
Content Type: Advocacy
Privacy International has joined several UK civil society organisations from across sectors in expressing our deep concerns regarding the financial surveillance powers proposed in the UK Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (DPDI Bill). Specifically outlined in Clause 128 and Schedule 11, these measures introduce mass algorithmic surveillance aimed at scrutinizing bank and third-party accounts to purportedly detect welfare fraud and errors. In other words, the Department for Work…
Content Type: News & Analysis
In a significant and forceful decision, on 1 March 2024 the UK's Data Protection Authority found that the UK Government's GPS tagging of migrants arriving to the UK by small boats and other "irregular" routes was unlawful.
The decision comes as a result of Privacy International's complaint filed in August 2022 against the GPS tagging policy, which alleged widespread and significant breaches of privacy and data protection law. Our complaint relied extensively on anonymous testimonies of…
Content Type: Advocacy
Privacy International had suggested the Human Rights Committee consider the following recommendations for the UK government:Review and reform the IPA 2016 to ensure its compliance with Article 17 of the ICCPR, including by removing the powers of bulk surveillance;Abandon efforts to undermine the limited safeguards of the IPA 2016 through the proposed Investigatory Powers Amendment Bill;Refrain from taking any measures that undermine or limit the availability of encrypted communications or other…
Content Type: Advocacy
BackgroundThe Snowden revelations and subsequent litigation have repeatedly identified unlawful state surveillance by UK agencies. In response, the UK Parliament passed the highly controversial Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA), which authorised massive, suspicionless surveillance on a scale never seen before, with insufficient safeguards or independent oversight.Privacy International led legal challenges to this mass surveillance regime both before and after the Act became law. The Act…
Content Type: Key Resources
We have been tracking the use of EdTech around the world to better understand the trends and shortcomings and strengthen ours and others understanding regarding these issues.This page will be updated as we find more examples and stories about EdTech from all around the world.
Content Type: Examples
Some UK schools have bought and installed sensors in toilets that 'actively listen' to pupils' conversations to try to detect keywords spoken by pupils. The sensors are being sold to detect vaping, bullying, and other problems. However, privacy campaigners say these sensors are potentially a safeguarding issue, a violation of children's rights, and are likely to be unlawful. The sensors do not record or save any conversations, but send alerts to staff when triggered. Not all the schools…
Content Type: Report
This policy paper seeks to determine the potential for the existing international private military and security companies (PMSC) regulatory framework to support more effective regulation of surveillance services provided by the private sector.In order to achieve this, and given that this paper addresses an issue that is at the intersection of two domains, it seeks to establish a common language and terminology between security sector governance and surveillance practitioners.In…
Content Type: Examples
A coalition of 33 civil rights, disabilities, privacy, and education advocacy groups are pushing the state of Florida to stop developing the Florida Schools Safety Portal, a database of detailed information about students for the claimed purpose of preventing school shootings, calling it a "massive surveillance effort". Governor Ron DeSantis has backed the database, which has been delayed since early 2019, when it was intended to become operational. The groups complain that the planned database…
Content Type: Examples
A 12-year-old boy and his parent worked out how to game the grading algorithm used by the testing software Edgenuity by including a list of keywords alongisde two full sentences in responses to short-answer questions. Students at others of the more than 20,000 schools that use Edgenuity use this and other strategies to get perfect grades. Students game grading algorithm for perfect scoresPublication: The VergeWriter: Monica Chin
Content Type: Video
We explore the legal case, the ways the tag hasn't worked for long periods of time, and a dubious AI the Home Office has been using in decisions as to whether someone remains on a GPS tag.LinksRead more from Katie's law firm, Wilsons Solicitors, about the casePI's Complaint to the ICO (the UK's Data Protection Authority)Read more about relevant cases in which PI has filed witness evidenceThe five companies at the heart of the UK's GPS tagging systemWe tested GPS ankle tags, read how our…
Content Type: Examples
Fairplay and the Center for Digital Democracy are asking the US Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Google and YouTube are violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and the terms of a 2019 settlement agreement by serving children personalised ads on videos labelled "made for kids". The two organisations, along with EPIC and Common Sense Media, believe the FTC should seek penalties topping tens of billions of dollars. In the 2019 settlement Google and YouTube were…
Content Type: Examples
An increasingly broad range of US government agencies - including the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Social Security Administration, and the departments of Agriculture, Education, and Housing and Urban Development - are able to break into encrypted phones and copy their data using technology provided by Cellebrite. At its IPO in August 2022, Cellebrite claimed 2,800 government customers in North America as well as six of the world’s ten largest pharmaceutical companies and six of the ten…
Content Type: Examples
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is using an obscure administrative subpoena called “1509”, intended for use only in criminal investigation about illegal imports or unpaid customs duty. Most requests have sought records from telecommunications companies, technology firms, money transfer services, airlines, and others, but in outlier cases ICE has used 1509s to obtain records from a Texas youth soccer league, a Georgia elementary school, boards of elections, two news organisations and a…
Content Type: Advocacy
In January 2024, PI responded to the call for input to the report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the impact of arms transfers on human rights, with a focus on the role of access to information in preventing, mitigating, and responding to the negative human rights impact of arms transfers - offering our experiences of navigating access to information regimes in the UK and the EU.
Access to information laws and processes are crucial in uncovering details of states' capabilities…
Content Type: Examples
Wisconsin schools use a racially discriminatory Dropout Early Warning System built by the state to identify incoming 9th graders who may be at risk of failing to graduate on time in order to offer them help. The system’s machine learning algorithms make their assessments based on test scores, disciplinary records, lunch price status, and race. In a study of millions of predictions over a decade, The Markup finds that the system may be wrongly and negatively influencing teachers’ impressions of…
Content Type: Advocacy
Privacy International welcomed the opportunity to provide input to the study of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee on the human rights implications of new and emerging technologies in the military domain (NTMD) to be presented to the Human Rights Council at its sixtieth session.In the course of our work, we observe that the line between military and civilian technologies is blurring. Governments are increasingly relying on the very same technologies for military and civilian uses.…
Content Type: People
Angelina is a Technology Advocacy Officer at Privacy International. She works primarily on projects related to: Health, Migration, Data Brokerage and Black Box Management.She's interested in the life cycle of the digital sphere, particularly how algorithms direct users' experiences with technology and with each other, as well as the impact of AI and automated decision-making on human behaviour and attitudes.Prior to PI, Angelina worked in the climate, tech and policy sectors. She holds a B.A.…