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Content Type: Advocacy
Today, PI filed a complaint with the Forensic Science Regulator (FSR) in relation to quality and accuracy issues in satellite-enabled Global Positioning System (GPS) tags used for Electronic Monitoring of subjects released from immigration detention (GPS tags). We are concerned there may be systemic failures in relation to the quality of data extracted from tags, processed and interpreted for use in investigations and criminal prosecutions.
The GPS tags are used by the Home Office to…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Privacy International (PI) has today filed complaints with the Information Commissioner (ICO) and Forensic Science Regulator (FSR) against the UK Home Office's use of GPS ankle tags to monitor migrants released on immigration bail. This policy and practice represents a seismic change in the surveillance of migrants in the UK. PI was first alerted to this scheme by organisations such as Bail for Immigration Detainees, an independent charity that exists to challenge immigration detention in the…
Content Type: Advocacy
Privacy International (PI) welcomes the call of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants to assess the human rights impact of current and newly established border management measures with the aim of identifying effective ways to prevent human rights violations at international borders, both on land and at sea.
The issues highlighted in the call for submissions are ones that PI has been investigating, reporting and monitoring as part of our campaigns demanding a human rights…
Content Type: Press release
Meta, the largest provider of social media sites and display advertising in the UK, acquired GIPHY, the largest provider of GIFs. In its report of 30 November 2021 the CMA found that the completed merger between Meta and GIPHY will give rise to a substantial lessening of competition.
The CAT confirmed the CMA's assessment and dismissed all but one of Meta’s appeal grounds, paving the way for Meta to sell GIPHY, as demanded by the CMA.
PI was granted permission to intervene in this case, one of…
Content Type: News & Analysis
The UK government has acknowledged that section 8(4) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (“RIPA”) (which has since been repealed) violated Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In relation to Article 10, it specifically acknowledged that the way in which security agencies handled confidential journalistic material violated fundamental rights protected by Article 10.
As part of a friendly settlement with two applicants, the UK government acknowledged…
Content Type: Long Read
In a roundtable available on YouTube, co-hosted with Garden Court Chambers, Privacy International brought together immigration law practitioners to discuss how they’ve used privacy and data protection law to seek information or redress for their clients.
Index:
1. UK Border 2025
2. Super-complaint and judicial review challenge to data sharing
3. Mobile phone seizure and extraction
4. Freedom of Information Act requests
The dystopian future: UK Border 2025
To set the scene on how the…
Content Type: News & Analysis
The notorious Clearview AI first rose to prominence in January 2020, following a New York Times report. Put simply, Clearview AI is a facial recognition company that uses an “automated image scraper”, a tool that searches the web and collects any images that it detects as containing human faces. All these faces are then run through its proprietary facial recognition software, to build a gigantic biometrics database.
What this means is that without your knowledge, your face could be stored…
Content Type: News & Analysis
What if we told you that every photo of you, your family, and your friends posted on your social media or even your blog could be copied and saved indefinitely in a database with billions of images of other people, by a company you've never heard of? And what if we told you that this mass surveillance database was pitched to law enforcement and private companies across the world?
This is more or less the business model and aspiration of Clearview AI, a company that only received worldwide…
Content Type: Video
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Read more about the ICO's provisional decision
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You can find out more about Clearview by listening to our podcast: The end of privacy? The spread of facial recognition
Content Type: Press release
In what could be seen as one of the strongest sanctions against the company in Europe, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which is tasked with enforcing data protection legislation in the UK, has today announced its provisional intent to issue a potential fine of £17 million against the controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI.
Clearview AI, which only received worldwide attention following a New York Times report back in January 2020, is a company whose business model…
Content Type: Advocacy
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has developed draft privacy guidance for police agencies' use of FRT, with a view to ensuring any use of FRT "complies with the law, minimizes privacy risks, and respects privacy rights". The Commissioner is undergoing consultation in relation to this guidance.
Privacy International and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association ("CCLA") welcome the Commissioner's efforts to strengthen the framework around police use of facial recognition, and the…
Content Type: Long Read
Additionally, in January 2020 Privacy International and UK-based NGO Liberty filed a new claim against MI5 and the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (the “Ungoverned Spaces Case”, this time, the case sought to hold MI5 and the SSHD accountable for systemic, long-term failures in the way they handle and retain millions of people’s personal data. As part of this claim, PI requested that the IPT re-opens parts of the original BPD/BCD. This aspect of…
Content Type: News & Analysis
What happened
On 22 July 2021, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) issued a declaration on our challenge to the UK bulk communications regime finding that section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 (since repealed by the Investigatory Powers Act 2016) was incompatible with EU law human rights standards. The result of the judgment is that a decade’s worth of secret data capture has been held to be unlawful. The unlawfulness would have remained a secret but for PI’s work.
You…
Content Type: Long Read
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK government’s historical mass interception program violates the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. The Court held that the program “did not contain sufficient “end-to-end” safeguards to provide adequate and effective guarantees against arbitrariness and the risk of abuse.” As a result the Court ruled that UK law "did not meet the “quality of law” requirement and was therefore incapable of keeping the “…
Content Type: Long Read
On 25 May 2021, the European Court of Human Rights issued its judgment in Big Brother Watch & Others v. the UK. Below, we answer some of the main questions relating to the case.
After our initial reaction, below we answer some of the main questions relating to the case.
NOTE: This post reflects our initial reaction to the judgment and may be updated.
What’s the ruling all about?
In a nutshell, one of the world’s most important courts, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human…
Content Type: Press release
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has today ruled that UK mass surveillance laws violate the rights to privacy and freedom of expression.
It found that:
The UK’s historical bulk interception regime violated the right to privacy protected by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and freedom of expression, protected by Article 10. Particularly it found that:
the absence of independent authorisation,
the failure to include the categories of selectors…
Content Type: Press release
Privacy International (PI), together with Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights, Homo Digitalis and noyb - the European Center for Digital Rights, has today filed a series of legal complaints against Clearview AI, Inc. The facial recognition company claims to have “the largest known database of 3+ billion facial images”. The complaints were submitted to data protection regulators in France, Austria, Italy, Greece and the United Kingdom.
As our complaints detail, Clearview AI…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Unwanted Witness’ research into Safeboda highlighted the company’s failure to comply with some of the law's core data protection principles, with a number of implications for the exercise of data subject rights. The enforcement action against Safeboda by National Information Technology Authority, Uganda (NITA-U) requires the company to make fundamental changes to how they handle people's personal data in order to comply with the Data Protection and Privacy Act, 2019.
This first landmark…
Content Type: Video
On 6 February 2021, the Constitutional Court of South Africa in a historic judgment declared unconstitutional years of secret and unchecked surveillance by South African authorities against millions of people - irrespective of whether they reside in South Africa.
The Court powerfully placed the judgment in historical context:
The constitutionally protected right to privacy seeks to be one of the guarantees that South Africa will not again act like the police state that it was under apartheid…
Content Type: Video
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Find out more about general warrants and out case
Listen to our last podcast with Caroline - about a ruling in the European Union's top court that UK, French and Belgian mass surveillance regimes must respect privacy: Judgement Day
And make sure we can keep taking these fights to court: support.privacyinternational.org
You can listen and subscribe to the podcast where ever you normally find your podcasts:
Spotify
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Pocket Casts…
Content Type: Long Read
What’s the ruling all about?
The Constitutional Court of South Africa in a historic judgment declared that bulk interception by the South African National Communications Centre is unlawful and invalid. Furthermore, the Constitutional Court found that the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act (RICA) 1) was deficient in failing to provide at least a post-notification procedure for subjects of interception; 2) failed to ensure the…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Today, the Constitutional Court of South Africa in a historic judgment declared that bulk interception by the South African National Communications Centre is unlawful and invalid.
The judgment is a confirmation of the High Court of South Africa in Pretoria’s powerful rejection of years of secret and unchecked surveillance by South African authorities against millions of people - irrespective of whether they reside in South Africa.
The case was brought by two applicants, the amaBhungane Centre…
Content Type: Advocacy
Esta carta también está disponible en inglés.
Estimados Sres. Zuckerberg y Pichai,
En los últimos años, ustedes han sido pioneros en la creación de importantes herramientas de transparencia para ayudar a los usuarios de su plataforma a entender, conocer y contextualizar la propaganda electoral a las cuales se ven expuestos. Estamos de acuerdo en que los procesos de verificación de anunciantes y los repositorios de anuncios son salvaguardas claves contra la manipulación y la desinformación en…
Content Type: Long Read
On 8 January 2021, the UK High Court issued a judgment in the case of Privacy International v. Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) appeared as interested parties to the case.
After our initial reaction, below we answer some of the main questions relating to the case.
NOTE: This post reflects our initial reaction to the judgment and may be updated.
What’s the ruling all about?
In…
Content Type: Frequently Asked Questions
On 8 January 2021, the UK High Court issued a judgment in the case of Privacy International v. Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) appeared as interested parties to the case.
After our initial reaction, below we answer some of the main questions relating to the case.
NOTE: This post reflects our initial reaction to the judgment and may be updated.
Content Type: News & Analysis
Today, the UK High Court has quashed a decision by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) and held that section 5 of the Intelligence Services Act (ISA) 1994 does not permit the issue of general warrants to authorise property interference and certain forms of computer hacking.
The Court referred to cases dating back to the 18th century, which demonstrate the common law’s insistence that the Government cannot search private premises without lawful authority even in the national security…
Content Type: Press release
Today, the UK High Court has quashed a decision by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), and ruled that section 5 of the Intelligence Services Act (ISA) 1994 does not permit the issuing of general warrants to authorise property interference and certain forms of computer hacking.
The Court referred to cases dating back to the 18th century, which demonstrate the common law’s insistence that the Government cannot search private premises without lawful authority even in the context of national…
Content Type: Long Read
Tucked away in a discrete side street in Hungary’s capital, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL) has since 2006 operated as an official EU agency responsible for developing, implementing, and coordinating training for law enforcement officials from across EU and non-EU countries.
Providing training to some 29,000 officials in 2018 alone, it has seen its budget rocket from €5 million in 2006 to over €9.3 million in 2019, and offers courses in everything from…