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Content Type: News & Analysis
Friday, November 6, 2020
PI is collaborating with The Carter Center election observation mission in the run up to and after Myanmar's national election on November 8th. The Carter Center is a US based NGO that has been invited to observe 111 elections in 39 countries since 1989. It has maintained a presence in Myanmar since 2013 when it's office was established in Yangon, and carried out long term observation for the 2015 election as well as 2020. The international election observer mission (IEOM) assesses the…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
Humanitarian organisations are defined by their commitment to core, apolitical principles, including: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence and to “do no harm”.
And yet the ways data and technology are being used in the world today are often far from being apolitical, humane, impartial, neutral and independent, and in many instances many actors are using technology to exploit people, failing to protect and empower many individuals and communities - in particular those most in need…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Friday, May 22, 2020
GDPR was hard won. PI, together with other civil society actors, fought from the beginning for a version of the law that offers the strongest rights and protections in the face of intense industry lobbying.
Holding the hidden data ecosystem to account
Two years ago, we committed to using GDPR to seek to hold to account the hidden data ecosystem - those companies that amass and exploit large amounts of our data for profit.
Here’s some of the action we’ve taken:
In Nov 2018, after months of…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Political campaigns around the world have turned into sophisticated data operations. They rely on data- your data- to facilitate a number of decisions: where to hold rallies, which States or constituencies to focus resources on, which campaign messages to focus on in which area, and how to target supporters, undecided voters, and non-supporters.
While data driven political campaigns are not new, the granularity of data available and the potential power to sway or suppress voters through that…
Content Type: Long Read
Monday, August 5, 2019
Image credit: Emil Sjöblom [ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)]
Prepaid SIM card use and mandatory SIM card registration laws are especially widespread in countries in Africa: these two factors can allow for a more pervasive system of mass surveillance of people who can access prepaid SIM cards, as well as exclusion from important civic spaces, social networks, and education and health care for people who cannot.
Mandatory SIM card registration laws require that people provide personal…
Content Type: Long Read
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
IMAGE SOURCE: "My Phone Bought This" by oliver t is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
LAST UPDATE: 14th January 2021
Mandatory SIM card registration laws require people to provide personal information, including a valid ID or even their biometrics, as a condition for purchasing or activating a SIM card. Such a requirement allows the state to identify the owner of a SIM card and infer who is most likely making a call or sending a message at any given time.
SIM card registration undermines…
Content Type: Long Read
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Image attribution: By Legaleagle86 at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0.
In a long-anticipated judgment, the Indian Supreme Court has ruled that India's controversial identification system Aadhaar is Constitutional. They based their conclusion on notes that there are sufficient measures in place to protect data, and that it is difficult to undertake surveillance of citizens on the basis of Aadhaar.
But there is some good in this ruling. The court has demanded that the Government introduce a 'strong…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Monday, September 24, 2018
“The gathering and holding of personal information on computers, data banks, and other devices, whether by public authorities or private individuals or bodies, must be regulated by law.”
- UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 16, 1988
Underpinning the obligations of those who process personal data, both public and private institutions, the grounds on which they may do so, and the rights of individuals, there are various data protection principles which promote and uphold values…
Content Type: Long Read
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
National and International civil society organisations (CSOs) play vital roles in many aspects of our societies as watchdogs of state powers, as representatives of the voices of the people, as experts to inform and educate an array of stakeholders.
One of our key lessons learned from three decades of work, including 10 years with the Privacy International Networkto build a global privacy movement,promoting and advocating for the highest privacy and data protection safeguards has been how civil…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Thursday, August 23, 2018
This month Brazil adopted a new data protection law, joining the ranks of more than 120 countries which have adopted such legislation, providing individuals with rights against the exploitation of their personal data. But after a veto from the Brazilian president, the law lacks an independent authority in charge of its application, which can severely undermine its impact.
When drafting data protection bills, one of the most important and often politically contentious issue tends to be their…
Content Type: Long Read
Friday, May 25, 2018
The European Union's new data privacy law (General Data Protection Regulation, better known as GDPR) takes effect today May 25th, 2018, after a two-year transition period. Despite some companies appearing to believe otherwise, and many articles misrepresenting its contents, the GDPR will have a significative impact beyond the European Union, and it will extend many of its data privacy safeguards to users’ data globally.
There are a number of reasons that explain this impact:
Obligations for…
Content Type: Press release
Thursday, May 24, 2018
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. companies should adopt the same data protection rules that are poised to go into effect in the European Union on May 25, Public Citizen, the Center for Digital Democracy and Privacy International said today.
In a sign-on letter, 28 groups are calling on some of the world’s largest companies – including Facebook, Google and Amazon, as well as digital advertisers like Nestle, Walmart and JPMorgan Chase – to use Europe’s impending General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR…
Content Type: Press release
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Tomaso Falchetta, PI's Head of Advocacy and Policy team said:
"The adoption of the Data Protection Act represents an important reform which strengthens the rights of individuals and increases obligations for the industry. The Act opens the way for the application of the EU General Data Protection Regulation in the UK, and regulates the processing of personal data by companies, public authorities, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies. PI particularly welcome increased powers for the…
Content Type: Long Read
Monday, January 29, 2018
To celebrate International Data Privacy Day (28 January), PI and its International Network have shared a full week of stories and research, exploring how countries are addressing data governance in light of innovations in technology and policy, and implications for the security and privacy of individuals.
At the core of data protection debates, there is a power play between empowering individuals to control their data and empowering those who use (or want to) use their data.
By regulating…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Sunday, January 28, 2018
It has been almost 40 years since the Council of Europe’s Convention 108 for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data was signed. The Convention was the first binding treaty dealing with privacy and data protection that recognised the necessity to “reconcile the fundamental values of the respect for privacy and the free flow of information between peoples” and is the reason why we celebrate Data Protection Day annually on 28 January.
It has since been…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
This post was written by Chair Emeritus of PI’s Board of Trustees, Anna Fielder.
The UK Data Protection Bill is currently making its way through the genteel debates of the House of Lords. We at Privacy International welcome its stated intent to provide a holistic regime for the protection of personal information and to set the “gold standard on data protection”. To make that promise a reality, one of the commitments in this government’s ‘statement of intent’ was to enhance people’s enforcement…
Content Type: Press release
Thursday, October 12, 2017
While welcoming the objective of the Bill, Privacy International has sent a briefing to the House of Lords and a letter to Minister of State for Digital, Matt Hancock MP, outlining key concerns and recommendations. The Bill's stated aim is “to create a clear and coherent data protection regime”, and to update the UK data protection law, including by bringing the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Law Enforcement Directive (DPLED) - into the UK domestic system.…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Thursday, December 17, 2015
The major overhaul of data protection laws in Europe is finally over, after three years of arduous and sustained political and lobbying activity by all those with a major stake and interest, including us at Privacy International (See our initial analysis of the two laws in 2012). We welcome this long overdue closure, but is this 91-articled, 200-paged piece of legislation been worth the enormous effort and no doubt millions of euros, dollars and pounds spent on it?
The legislative package…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Friday, October 18, 2013
The argument that human rights are a Western concept and that privacy is not a concern for the developing world was rejected last week in a two-day civil society seminar held in Dakar, Senegal.
More than 30 members of West African civil society participated in the seminar on privacy and data protection, organised by Jonction with the support of the Senegalese Commission for Data Protection. Participants denounced the shortcomings of governments and the private sector in upholding, protecting…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
A full analysis of the UK Information Commissioner's "Anonymisation code of practice: managing data protection risk" will take time and working knowledge of how the code is used in practice.
At the launch, the ICO signalled that while they believed the code was now up to scratch, they were open to additions and clarifications given that it is the first document of its kind in the world. We applaud them for this; the code is likely to be copied internationally, so it is particularly important…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Tuesday’s letter to Google CEO Larry Page, personally signed by 29 European data protection authorities, ordered the corporation (inter alia) to give users greater control over their personal information. The notions of trust and control are emphasised throughout the letter, and Google is urged to "…develop new tools to give users more control over their personal data" and "collect explicit consent for the combination of data for certain purposes". It is good news that the regulators have…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Last evening (in India, that is) we got some very good news. Earlier, an online news item in a major newsmagazine described a forthcoming report from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, a cross-party body created to study Bills being presented for consideration in Parliament, as having expressed its reservations about the NIAI Bill, that they would recommend recasting it. The NIAI Bill seeks to set up a National Information Authority, whose job is to take over the functioning of…