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Content type: News & Analysis
Written by Privacy International
07:06: Camille’s smart pillow sends a signal to her smartphone that it’s time for her to wake up. She checks the quality of sleep on the app – last night was not great. Because the pillow tracks the motion in her bed, the company knows what else she may (or may not) have been up to. But the company doesn’t just track her when she is in bed. By downloading the app, Camille has also authorised access to her location wherever she goes, her camera, her contact…
Content type: News & Analysis
Written by the Foundation for Media Alternatives
7:01: Naomi wakes up and gets ready for the day.
7:58: Naomi books an Uber ride to Bonifacio Global City (BGC), where she has a meeting. She pays with her credit card. While Naomi is waiting for her Uber, she googles restaurant options for her dinner meeting in Ortigas.
9:00: While her Uber ride is stuck in traffic on EDSA (a limited access highway circling Manilla), Naomi’s phone automatically connects to the free WiFi offered by the…
Content type: News & Analysis
Written by Datos Protegidos
04:16: Carolina can´t sleep. She grabs her mobile from the nightstand next to her bed to check her WhatsApp notifications and read some tweets. She decides to disconnect to and tries to go back to sleep.
07:00: Carolina is woken by her mobile phone alarm. She picks it up and checks her social networks and messages again. To her astonishment, she finds a message in a WhatsApp group from her former college classmate Pablo at 5:25 asking if anyone was still…
Content type: News & Analysis
Written by Derechos Digitales
03:00: Maritza wakes up and gets ready. It’s still dark. She has to go stand in a queue outside the nearest grocery store, where after several hours her fingerprint will be scanned to retrieve her personal information from a governmental database. This will tell the cashier not only her address, full name and phone number, but also if she already bought her allotted ration of food that month. If so, she will be sent back empty-handed. There are drones flying…
Content type: News & Analysis
Written by the National Coalition for Human Rights Defenders - Kenya and Privacy International
05:00: Mercy’s alarm goes off. She gets out of the warmth of the bed into the piercing morning chill. She switches on the bedside lamp and reaches for her Bible. She then checks in onto her devotional group on Facebook, as she does every morning. Her Facebook app keeps track of her location, and the time she wakes up.
05:24: She steps into the shower and prepares for her day in the…
Content type: News & Analysis
Written by Privacy International
08:27: Jen gets on the London Underground to go to work. She uses her contactless debit card to pay for the tube, so Transport for London knows where she is travelling to and from and her bank knows when she takes the tube.
08:36: The public WiFi on the tube means that even when Jen doesn’t connect to it, her every step inside the underground is tracked. The data will eventually be sold to advertisers.
08:58: Jen arrives at work. As with all the lower…
Content type: Advocacy
On 6 March 2018, Privacy International participated in an interactive dialogue with the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy at the 37th Ordinary Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. We highlighted the growing trend of governments embracing hacking to facilitate their surveillance activities, and recommended the development of a human rights analysis of government hacking for surveillance purposes, with the view to forming specific…
Content type: Advocacy
Este informe de terceras partes interesadas es una contribución escrita presentada por Dejusticia, Fundación Karisma y Privacy International (PI). Dejusticia es una organización de derechos humanos colombiana que brinda conocimientos especializados sobre derechos humanos. Fundación Karisma es una organización de la sociedad civil colombiana que busca dar respuesta a las oportunidades y a las amenazas que surgen en el contexto de la tecnología para el desarrollo para el ejercicio de los derechos…
Content type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Dejusticia, Fundación Karisma and Privacy International (PI). Dejusticia is a Colombian human rights organization that provides expert knowledge on human rights. Fundación Karisma is a Colombian civil society organization that seeks to respond to the opportunities and threats that arise in the context of ‘technology for development’ for the exercise of human rights. PI is a human rights organisation that works to advance and promote the right to…
Content type: Long Read
To celebrate the hard work of privacy advocates around the world, we highlight 17 #PrivacyWins from 2017!
Content type: Press release
Hearing: Cross examination of senior GCHQ official about Intelligence Agencies’ use of massive databases of information about everyone in the UK
When: Monday 26 February 2018, 3.15pm
Where: Royal Courts of Justice, Court 28, Strand, London WC2A 2LL
Summary
This is the first time GCHQ have given open evidence in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (The Tribunal). It is also the first time they will be cross examined by Privacy International on serious misleading errors they provided in…
Content type: Explainer
Phone networks are divided between two networks: the physical and the mobile. The physical runs on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) that serves your home phone. Mobile networks are dominant in the age of communication and are used to relay mobile communications to the PSTN. The most prominent mobile networks are GSM networks (Global System for Mobile communications) and are what we use everyday to communicate with one another. Another system is known as CDMA (Code Division Multiple…
Content type: Advocacy
Privacy International's briefing on the UK's Data Protection Bill for the second reading in the House of Commons.
Content type: Explainer
Video surveillance technologies are deployed in public and private areas for monitoring purposes. Closed-circuit television (CCTV)– a connected network of stationary and mobile video cameras– is increasingly used in public areas, private businesses and public institutions such as schools and hospitals. Systems incorporating video surveillance technologies have far greater powers than simply what the camera sees. Biometric technologies use the transmitted video to profile, sort and identify…
Content type: Explainer
What is the Global Surveillance Industry?
Today, a global industry consisting of hundreds of companies develops and sells surveillance technology to government agencies around the world. Together, these companies sell a wide range of systems used to identify, track, and monitor individuals and their communications for spying and policing purposes. The advanced powers available to the best equipped spy agencies in the world are being traded around the world. It is a…
Content type: Legal Case Files
Investigatory Powers Tribunal
Case No. IPT/13/92/CH
Status: On Appeal
In July 2013, Privacy International filed a complaint before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), challenging two aspects of the United Kingdom's surveillance regime revealed by the Snowden disclosures: (1) UK bulk interception of internet traffic transiting undersea fibre optic cables landing in the UK and (2) UK access to the information gathered by the US through its various bulk surveillance programs. Our complaint…
Content type: Press release
Privacy International and Open Rights Group have submitted a response to the Consultation on establishing a UK Privacy and Civil Liberties Board.
Content type: Press release
Below is a joint statement from Privacy International and Bytes for All.
This Friday, 27 September, marks the conclusion of the 24th session of the UN Human Rights Council, a session which has, for the first time, seen issues of internet surveillance in the spotlight. Privacy International and Bytes for All welcome the attention given at the Human Rights Council to this issue. However, we are concerned about developments which took place that threaten privacy rights and freedom of…
Content type: Legal Case Files
3 July 2013
In the wake of revelations that the UK Government is accessing wide-ranging intelligence information from the US and is conducting mass surveillance on citizens across the UK, Privacy International has commenced legal action against the Government, charging that the expansive spying regime is seemingly operated outside of the rule of law, lacks any accountability, and is neither necessary nor proportionate.
The claim, filed in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), …