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Content type: News & Analysis
Yesterday, we found out that Google has been reported to collect health data records as part of a project it has named “Project Nightingale”. In a partnership with Ascension, Google has purportedly been amassing data for about a year on patients in 21 US states in the form of lab results, doctor diagnoses and hospitalization records, among other categories, which amount to a complete health history, including patient names and dates of birth.
This comes just days after the news of Google'…
Content type: Examples
The Home Office Christmas 2018 announcement of the post-Brexit registration scheme for EU citizens resident in the UK included the note that the data applicants supplied might be shared with other public and private organisations "in the UK and overseas". Basing the refusal on Section 31 of the Freedom of Information Act, the Home Office refused to answer The3Million's FOI request for the identity of those organisations. A clause in the Data Protection Act 2018 exempts the Home Office from…
Content type: Examples
In December 2018, in the wake of the Windrush scandal, the National Police Council, which represents police chiefs across England and Wales agreed to cease passing on to deportation authorities information about people suspected of being in the country illegally. The measures also ban officers from checking the police national computer solely to check on immigration status. Police said they believed that their too-close relationship with immigration authorities in aid of the government's "…
Content type: Long Read
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: News & Analysis
Image: The Great Hack publicity still, courtesy of Netflix.
This is a review of the documentary 'The Great Hack' originally published on IMDb.
This documentary is a fascinating account of The Facebook/Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
In early 2018, Cambridge Analytica became a household name. The company had exploited the personal data of millions of Facebook users, without their knowledge or consent, and used it for political propaganda.
At a running time of almost two hours, The Great…
Content type: News & Analysis
While people may think that providing their photos and data is a small price to pay for the entertainment FaceApp offers, the app raises concerns about privacy, manipulation, and data exploitation—although these concerns are not necessarily unique to FaceApp.
According to FaceApp's terms of use and privacy policy, people are giving FaceApp "a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully-paid, transferable sub-licensable license" to use or publish the…
Content type: Long Read
By Valentina Pavel, PI Mozilla-Ford Fellow, 2018-2019
Our digital environment is changing, fast. Nobody knows exactly what it’ll look like in five to ten years’ time, but we know that how we produce and share our data will change where we end up. We have to decide how to protect, enhance, and preserve our rights in a world where technology is everywhere and data is generated by every action. Key battles will be fought over who can access our data and how they may use it. It’s time to take…
Content type: Advocacy
Democratic engagement is increasingly mediated by digital technology. Whether through the use of social media platforms for political campaigning, biometric registration of voters and e-voting, police monitoring of political rallies and demonstrations using facial recognition, and other surveillance methods, technology is now infused into the political process.
These technologies rely on collecting, storing, and analysing personal information to operate. Much recent debate around…
Content type: Advocacy
In March 2019, Privacy International responded to a call for evidence for an inquiry by the UK Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights into "The Right to Privacy (Article 8) and the Digital Revolution".
Our suggestions included that, the human rights framework should support:
Increasing individuals’ control over their data to encourage the design of technologies that protect peoples’ autonomy and privacy.
Increasing security to result in more rights and protections for…
Content type: News & Analysis
By Ailidh Callander, Legal Officer
This piece first appeared in the 500th edition of the Scottish Legal Action Group Journal (2019 SCOLAG (500, June) 124
Political scandal, stronger regulation on privacy but what about social protection?
In an increasingly digitalised and data driven world, an era of government and corporate mass data exploitation, the right to privacy and data protection and what this means in practice is more important than ever. Surveillance is a power generator and…
Content type: Advocacy
In April, the UK government published what it called "plans for a world-leading package of online safety measures that also supports innovation and a thriving digital economy".
The White Paper which sets out plans for establishing in law a new duty of care towards users, overseen by a new regulatory body, aimed at making companies more accountable when it comes to illegal activity and content deemed "harmful", but not illegal.
As part of the plans, a public consultation…
Content type: Advocacy
In early June 2019, PI engaged in the UK's Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation consultation regarding online targeting. PI focused its submission on the use of targeting in online political and issue-based advertising, and the collection and use of data to target people online.
In considering the impact of online targeting, it is essential that the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation have due regard for privacy as a fundamental right (as enshrined in UK, European, and International Law).…
Content type: Long Read
Like millions of other people, you use messaging apps, social media, share, read and watch content on your phone or computer. If that’s the case then hundreds of AdTech companies collect and exchange your data every single day. AdTech, a short form of advertisement technology, is a catch-all term that describes tools and services that connect advertisers with target audiences and publishers. It’s also a multi-billion-dollar industry that is facing investigations by Data Protection Authorities…
Content type: Press release
The Irish Data Protection Commission has today launched an inquiry into the data practices of ad-tech company Quantcast, a major player in the online tracking industry. PI's 2018 investigation and subsequent submission to the Irish DPC showed how the company is systematically collecting and exploiting people's data in ways people are unaware of. PI also investigated and complained about Acxiom, Criteo, Experian, Equifax, Oracle, and Tapad.
PI welcomes this announcement and its focus on…
Content type: Long Read
Image Source: "Voting Key" by CreditDebitPro is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Democratic society is under threat from a range of players exploiting our data in ways which are often hidden and unaccountable. These actors are manifold: traditional political parties (from the whole political spectrum), organisations or individuals pushing particular political agendas, foreign actors aiming at interfering with national democratic processes, and the industries that provide products that …
Content type: News & Analysis
The first half of 2018 saw two major privacy moments: in March, the Facebook/ Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, followed in May by the EU General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") taking effect. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, as it has become known, grabbed the attention and outrage of the media, the public, parliamentarians and regulators around the world - demonstrating that yes, people do care about violations of their privacy and abuse of power. This scandal has been one of…
Content type: Advocacy
Consultation Submission
In March 2019, Privacy International submitted a response to a consultation on Disinformation in Electoral Contexts, led by the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights together with the Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation (DECO) and the Department of International Law (DIL) of the Organisation of American States (OAS).
In our submission we highlighted the importance of minmising data…
Content type: Advocacy
In December 2018, PI responded to the UK Information Commissioner's (ICO) Call for Views on a Code of Practice for the use of personal information in political campaigns.
The consultation followed on from the ICO's policy report Democracy Disrupted?, published in July 2018, which recommended that the Government should legislate at the earliest opportunity to introduce a statutory Code of Practice under the Data Protection Act 2018 for the use of personal information in campaigns.…
Content type: News & Analysis
This piece was first published in GDPR today in March 2019.
Elections, referendums and political campaigns around the world are becoming ever more sophisticated data operations. This raises questions about the political use and abuse of personal data. With the European Union elections fast approaching and numerous national and local elections taking place across EU Member States, it is essential that the legal frameworks intended to protect our personal data do just that.
Member State…
Content type: Long Read
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Spain is holding a national general election on April 28 (its third in four years). Four weeks later Spaniards will again go to the polls to vote in the European Parliament elections. At Privacy International we are working to investigate and challenge the exploitation of people’s data in the electoral cycle including in political campaigns. This includes looking at the legal frameworks governing the use of data by political parties and their…
Content type: News & Analysis
This past weekend, in an Op-Ed in the Washington Post, Mark Zuckerberg called for new regulations to address harmful content, electoral integrity, privacy and data portability.
Nine years since he proclaimed that privacy is no longer a social norm, four years since Facebook noticed broadscale harvesting and exploitation of their users' data by third party companies and chose not to tell us about it, two years since he denied there were any abuses of data in political campaigns, and…
Content type: News & Analysis
We found this image here.
Today, a panel of competition experts, headed by Professor Jason Furman, the former chief economic adviser of in the Obama administration, confirmed that tech giants, like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft, do not face enough competition.
Significantly, the report finds that control over personal data by tech giants is one of the main causes preventing competition and ultimately innovation.
Privacy International's research has shown clear examples of…
Content type: News & Analysis
Privacy International welcomes the focus on data and privacy contained in the final report by the UK House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS) on Disinformation and ‘fake news’. Beyond our control, companies and political parties have banded together to exploit our data. This report establishes essential steps to remedying this downward spiral. An important part of the democratic process is freedom of expression and right to political participation, including the right…
Content type: News & Analysis
At the beginning of November 2018, the first GDPR-related privacy and freedom of expression case arose in Romania in connection to the publication by the RISE Project of several articles about a corruption investigation. The articles reported a close relationship between a road construction company that is currently under investigation for fraud, European funds, and a high-profile politician.
Shortly after the first article was published, the Romanian data protection authority (“ANSPDCP”) sent…
Content type: News & Analysis
Dear will.i.am,
We saw your piece in the Economist and were very excited to learn that you care about privacy as much as we do. At PI we expose government and corporate bad behaviours, we disrupt their plans, and identify a hopeful path forward.
That’s why we very much agree with you that people need much more protection, transparency and control over their personal data. Cheers for: “I want to have it clearly explained in plain language who has access to my camera, to my photos, who’s…
Content type: Long Read
During the last World Economic Forum in Davos, the CEO of Microsoft joined the chorus of voices calling for new global privacy rules, saying the following in regard to the new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):
“My own point of view is that it's a fantastic start in treating privacy as a human right. I hope that in the United States we do something similar, and that the world converges on a common standard."
We have come a long way. From tech companies fighting and…
Content type: Long Read
The Privacy International Network is celebrating Data Privacy Week, where we’ll be talking about how trends in surveillance and data exploitation are increasingly affecting our right to privacy. Join the conversation on Twitter using #dataprivacyweek.
Innovations in surveillance and data exploitation present challenges in the fight to protect personal data across the world. Since 1990 we have been working to build a global movement through working with others - from leading civil society…
Content type: Long Read
The Privacy International Network is celebrating Data Privacy Week, where we’ll be talking about how trends in surveillance and data exploitation are increasingly affecting our right to privacy. Join the conversation on Twitter using #dataprivacyweek.
It is no mystery that data exploitation is part of most consumer-oriented tech companies’ business models. A big part of our lives is recorded and exploited, from our web searches, to our personal communications, location, and our shopping habits…
Content type: News & Analysis
We found this image here.
In order for GDPR to be effective at protecting people's data, it must be implemented and enforced. Therefore, we are pleased to see that CNIL has taken action and issued Google a fine of €50 million based on complaints by NOYB and La Quadrature Du Net in May 2018. Despite numerous statements by Google that it takes the protection of people's data seriously, the decision demonstrates that they have a long way to go and that regulators will take action to hold…