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Content Type: Press release
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: Press release
In a remarkable development in Privacy International's four year legal battle against the UK Government's powers to hack phones and computers on a massive scale, the UK Supreme Court has agreed to hear the London-based charity's case in December 2018.
Privacy International's case stems from a decision by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (a specialised court set up to hear complaints against government surveillance, including surveillance carried out by the UK intelligence agencies) finding…
Content Type: News & Analysis
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Background
Email is hard to secure. For years we've been trying to build security on top of email, such as through technologies like Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) and the open source implementation: GnuPG (GPG).
What happened
In the past 48 hours, there have been very scary looking reports recommending people switch off PGP in their email clients.
The TL;DR version of this post is:
PGP is not broken by this attack
You absolutely should not stop…
Content Type: Press release
Today, as the Data Protection Bill reaches its final stages, Privacy International has written to the leaders of the main UK political parties asking for public commitment to not use the exemption provided in the Bill to target voters - both online and offline - in all local and national forthcoming elections or by-elections.
Privacy International has long been concerned about the exploitation of peoples’ data and the opaque data ecosystem, and the impact of such practices on the democratic…
Content Type: News & Analysis
En el 2011 se liquidó el DAS. Las violaciones, excesos y abusos de la inteligencia estatal que comenzaban por la intimidad y terminaban con la vida de los ciudadanos habían producido condenas judiciales a varios exdirectores: claro indicador de que se necesitaba un cambio. Siete años ha tenido el Estado colombiano para ordenar la casa y esta semana someterá sus récords de derechos humanos al examen de los miembros de Naciones Unidas. La evaluación analizará, entre otros…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Los frecuentes escándalos sobre el abuso de la vigilancia estatal en actividades de inteligencia, la exagerada obligación legal que tienen las empresas de telefonía de retener los datos de las comunicaciones de sus usuarios por cinco años o la manera como se diluye el concepto de privacidad en el Código de Policía serán parte del examen que se haga en el seno de la ONU sobre la forma como Colombia cumple sus compromisos de derechos humanos.
Dirigido por los Estados y con el auspicio del…
Content Type: News & Analysis
In the lead-up to the 30th session of the Universal Periodic Review which took place on 10 May 2018, Fundación Karisma, a partner organisation in the Privacy International Network, joined a coalition of civil society groups in Colombia to raise more awareness about the country's human rights record.
As part of the joint effort, the coalition produced factsheets on various human rights in the Colombian context, including the right to privacy. It is available in both English and Spanish.
Content Type: Long Read
If you operate an internet company in Russia, you aren’t necessarily surprised to one day open the door to someone, grasping in one hand a bundle of wires and in the other a letter from a government agency demanding access to your servers, with a black box wedged under one arm.
Internet companies in Russia are required by law to store the content of users’ communications for six months and the metadata of users’ communications for three years, essentially meaning that what a person does…
Content Type: Long Read
Hasn't Facebook said it would give European data protection to all of their users?
Yes, but only in very vague language. In an initial reaction to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Mark Zuckerberg declared that Facebook would apply the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) “in spirit” to their 2 billion users worldwide. When questioned by members of the US Congress, Zuckerberg declared that "[a]ll the same controls will be available around the world". Representative Green sought…
Content Type: Press release
Privacy International (PI) has today sent a detailed report and list of questions to the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, following her admission that failures in the UK system governing intelligence sharing with international partners helped facilitate the detention, retention and “appalling treatment” of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar.
Yesterday, in a letter written to Belhaj and Boudchar and read out in the UK parliament, Prime Minister May made the extraordinary admission that “The…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Following on from the publication of our ‘Digital Stop and Search’ report last month, into the use of intrusive technology that enables officers to download all of the data stored on our mobile phones, we are pleased that Scotland's Justice Sub-Committee on Policing have been scrutinising Police Scotland over their use of the technology.
During the hearing by Scotland's Justice Sub-Committee on Policing on 10th May John Finnie MSP stated he personally did not feel reassured, after grilling…
Content Type: News & Analysis
The UK police use a range of sophisticated technologies that raise serious privacy concerns because of the way in which they gather huge amounts of personal information about often large numbers of people in public places. You can download the leaflet above (just right click and save) and read more about these technologies.
If you agree with us that the police’s use of these technologies should be regulated to protect personal privacy, then please take part in our #spypolice campaign, and…
Content Type: Long Read
TO TAKE PART IN OUR CAMPAIGN, RIGHT CLICK ON THE PICTURES BELOW, SAVE THEM, AND SHARE THEM ON SOCIAL MEDIA TAGGED #SPYPOLICE
Have you ever been to a peaceful protest, demo or march? Did you assume that the police would only be identifying 'troublemakers'? How would you feel if just by turning up at a peaceful protest, the police automatically identified you, without your consent or knowledge, and stored personal information about you (including photographs of your face) in a secret database?…
Content Type: News & Analysis
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As part of Privacy International’s mission, we aim to take the issues emerging from our research and that of our partners to new spaces of debate and to the attention of stakeholders at the national, regional and international level.
In April 2018, Privacy International was able to engage for the first time with the African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR) at its 62nd Ordinary Session, which took place in Nouakchott, Mauritania.
The right to privacy does…
Content Type: Press release
We found this picture here.
Privacy International has today a issued a formal complaint to the UK Information Commissioner about the police’s use of intrusive ‘mobile phone extraction’ technology, enabling them to download all of the content from a person’s phone — without a warrant, and whether they are suspect, witness or even victim of a crime. Further complaints have also been sent to the Home Office and the Independent Office for Police Conduct, calling for urgent reforms to a totally…
Content Type: Press release
Full report is available here
ARTICLE 19 and Privacy International’s report provides an overview of the impact of AI technologies on freedom of expression and privacy. It calls for further study and monitoring of how AI tools impact human rights.
Specifically, we call on states and companies to:
Ensure protection of international human rights standards. All AI tools must be subject to laws, regulations, and ethical codes which meet the threshold set by international standards.…
Content Type: Long Read
A major new report published today by Privacy International has identified alarming weaknesses in the oversight arrangements that are supposed to govern the sharing of intelligence between state intelligence agencies.
'Secret Global Surveillance Networks: Intelligence Sharing Between Governments and the Need for Safeguards' is based on an international collaborative investigation carried out by 40 NGOs in 42 countries.
Previously undisclosed documents obtained by PI via litigation in the…
Content Type: Long Read
This piece was originally published in Lawfare in April 2018
The United States is party to a number of international intelligence sharing arrangements—one of the most prominent being the so-called “Five Eyes” alliance. Born from spying arrangements forged during World War II, the Five Eyes alliance facilitates the sharing of signals intelligence among the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The Five Eyes countries agree to exchange by default all signals intelligence…
Content Type: News & Analysis
El 10 de mayo de 2018, en el marco del 30º período de sesiones del Examen Periódico Universal (EPU) en el Consejo de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas, toca la revisión de Colombia, lo que es una oportunidad Colombia y otros Estados para declarar qué acciones han tomado para mejorar la situación de derechos humanos en sus propios países, para cumplir sus obligaciones internacionales en la materia.
Colombia se encuentra actualmente en un punto de inflexión, debido al proceso de transición…
Content Type: News & Analysis
On 10 May 2018, Colombia’s human right record will be reviewed as part of the 30th session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), under the auspices of the Human Rights Council, which provides the opportunity for each State to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to fulfil their human rights obligations.
Colombia is at an important turning point in its history as it transitions from four decades of conflict. This provides…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Today, the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) sent a letter to the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, urging Facebook to adopt the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as a baseline standard, not just for EU consumers as it is required, but for all Facebook services.
The letter comes ahead of Facebook Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg’s, appearance before congressional committee over Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of customer data to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.…
Content Type: Long Read
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When we browse the internet, go to work, drive down the street, go shopping, interact with institutions, or simply move through the city, data is collected about us.
Advanced profiling technologies answer questions we did not raise. They generate knowledge we did not anticipate, but are eager to apply. As knowledge is power, profiling changes the power relationships between the profilers and the profiled.
In a world where everything we do becomes more and more…
Content Type: News & Analysis
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You’d be hard pressed to find an issue relating to human rights or the rule of law that wouldn’t benefit from a greater appreciation of the role of technology plays. Increasingly the practice of law, the waging of politics, and the conduct of social and economic affairs all are altered, modified, and even conducted through technological means. So to is the accumulation and use of power.
This is why at Privacy International, technology is at the core of what we do as…
Content Type: News & Analysis
This op-ed originally appeared in the New Statesman.
Imagine the police searching your home without good reason, without a warrant, without your knowledge. For good measure let’s also imagine that they take a full inventory of all of your possessions and store this in a secret database indefinitely.
A peculiar feature of modernity is that what we would find dystopian in the real world is banal in our virtual world. And the irony is that this can be a greater violation of our privacy and…
Content Type: News & Analysis
This op-ed originally appeared in the Huffington Post.
As technologies used by the police race ahead of outdated legislation, we are left vulnerable to potential for misuse and abuse of our data
The vast quantities of data we generate every minute of the day and how it can be exploited is challenging democratic and societal norms. The use by UK police forces of technologies that provide access to data on our phones, which document everything we do, everywhere we go, everyone we interact with…
Content Type: Long Read
As we said before, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandals are a wake-up call for policy makers. And also a global issue. People around the world are concerned by the exploitation of their data. The current lack of transparency into how companies are using people’s data is unacceptable and needs to be addressed.
There is an entire hidden ecosystem of companies harvesting and sharing personal data. From credit scoring and insurance quotations to targeted political communication, this…
Content Type: Press release
Key points:
Privacy International have today published a report entitled 'Digital Stop and search: how the UK police can secretly download everything from your mobile phone', based on Freedom of Information requests to 47 police forces across the UK about their use of 'mobile phone extraction' technologies, which enable them to download all the content and data from a mobile phone.
Police forces across the UK are secretly downloading data from the smartphones of people across…
Content Type: Long Read
Today Privacy International together with 27 other organisations from across Europe urge European governments to strengthen the protection of privacy and security of online communications. The proposal to reform e-privacy in Europe was launched in January 2017. However, despite the clear and urgent need of this reform, recently demonstrated by the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica case, the negotiations by EU member states have been inconclusive. Worse still, some governments seem willing to…
Content Type: Long Read
In December 2017, Privacy International published an investigation into the use of data and microtargeting during the 2017 Kenyan elections. Cambridge Analytica was one of the companies that featured as part of our investigation.
Due to the recent reporting on Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, we have seen renewed interest in this issue and our investigation. Recently in March of 2018, Channel 4 News featured a report on micro targeting during the 2017 Kenyan Presidential Elections, and the…
Content Type: Long Read
The ongoing Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal is a wake-up call for UK policy-makers who too often encourage and promote digital industries over the protection people’s personal data. The scandal has shown that the public is concerned by companies’ exploitation of their data. The current lack of transparency into how companies are using people’s data is unacceptable and needs to be addressed.
Reform should not be limited to the behaviour of individual companies. Consumers are confronted…