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Content Type: Report
Over the past years, data retention regulation imposing generalised and indiscriminate data retention obligations to telecommunication companies and Internet service provides has been introduced in various jurisdictions across the world. As the data retention practices across the world have evolved this new report is an attempt to shed some light on the current state of affairs in data retention regulation across ten key jurisdictions. Privacy International has consulted with human…
Content Type: News & Analysis
We have been fighting for transparency and stronger regulation of the use of IMSI catchers by law enforcement in the UK since 2016. The UK police forces have been very secretive about the use of IMSI catchers – maintaining a strict “neither confirm nor deny” (NCND) policy. In our efforts to seek greater clarity we wrote to the UK body which monitors the use of covert investigatory powers, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office (IPCO), asking the Commissioner to revisit this…
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on our challenge to the UK bulk communications regime finding that section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 (since repealed by the Investigatory Powers Act 2016) was incompatible with EU law human rights standards.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: 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: 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: Video
Find out more on our website: https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/4206/qa-eus-top-court-rules-uk-french-and-belgian-mass-surveillance-regimes-must-respect
And make sure we can keep taking these fights to court: support.privacyinternational.org
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Content Type: Long Read
Q&A: EU's top court rules that UK, French and Belgian mass surveillance regimes must respect privacy
Content Type: Press release
By treating everyone as a suspect, the bulk data collection or retention regimes engage European fundamental rights to privacy, data protection, freedom of expression, as guaranteed respectively by Articles 7, 8, and 11 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Caroline Wilson Palow, Legal Director of Privacy International, said:
"Today’s judgment reinforces the rule of law in the EU. In these turbulent times, it serves as a reminder that no government should be above the law. Democratic…
Content Type: Report
The majority of people today carry a mobile phone with them wherever they go, which they use to stay connected to the world. Yet an intrusive tool, known as an International Mobile Subscriber Identity catcher, or “IMSI catcher” is a form of surveillance equipment that enables governments and state authorities to conduct indiscriminate surveillance of mobile devices, and by extension, on users.
IMSI catchers can do much more than monitor and intercept mobile communications. Designed to imitate…
Content Type: News & Analysis
IMSI catchers (or stingrays as they are known in the US) are one of the surveillance technologies that has come to the forefront again in the protests against police brutality and systemic racism that have been sparked by the murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020.
An International Mobile Subscriber Identity catcher – in short an “IMSI catcher” – is an intrusive piece of technology that can be used to locate and track all mobile phones that are switched on in a certain area. It does so by…
Content Type: Long Read
In December 2019, the Information Rights Tribunal issued two disappointing decisions refusing appeals brought by Privacy International (PI) against the UK Information Commissioner.
The appeals related to decisions by the Information Commissioner (IC), who is responsible for the UK’s Freedom of Information regime, concerning responses by the Police and Crime Commissioner for Warwickshire and the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis (The Metropolitan Police) to PI’s freedom of information…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Today Advocate General (AG) Campos Sánchez-Bordona of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), issued his opinions (C-623/17, C-511/18 and C-512/18 and C-520/18) on how he believes the Court should rule on vital questions relating to the conditions under which security and intelligence agencies in the UK, France and Belgium could have access to communications data retained by telecommunications providers.
The AG addressed two major questions:
(1) When states seek to impose…
Content Type: Press release
Today the Advocate General (AG) of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Campos Sánchez-Bordona, issued his opinion on how he believes the Court should rule on vital questions relating to the conditions under which security and intelligence agencies in the UK, France and Belgium could have access to communications data retained by telecommunications providers.
The AG advises the following:
The UK’s collection of bulk communications data violates EU law.
The French and Belgium…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Today, the High Court of South Africa in Pretoria in a historic decision declared that bulk interception by the South African National Communications Centre is unlawful and invalid.
The judgment is a 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 for Investigative Journalism and journalist Stephen…
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.
In the era of smart cities, the gap between the internet and the so-called physical world is closing. Gone are the days, when the internet was limited to your activities behind a desktop screen, when nobody knew you were a dog.
Today, the…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Our intervention comes on the back of mounting evidence that the South African state’s surveillance powers have been abused, and so-called “checks & balances” in RICA have failed to protect citizens’ constitutional right to privacy.
Among our core arguments are:
That people have a right to be notified when their communications have been intercepted so that they can take action when they believe their privacy has been unlawfully breached. Currently RICA prevents such notification, unlike…
Content Type: Press release
Privacy International, represented by Liberty, is challenging court decision allowing police to ‘neither confirm nor deny’ they hold certain information on IMSI catchers
Privacy rights organisation has fought for almost two years for public disclosure of records on how UK police purchase and use mobile phone surveillance technology
Privacy International has today filed an appeal challenging police forces’ refusal to disclose information on their purchase and use of IMSI catchers.
IMSI…
Content Type: Report
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) recently issued a series of decisions in Privacy International’s long-running battle for information about UK police forces' acquisition of IMSI catchers. This case study provides an in-depth summary and analysis of this process.
We hope it is useful to both campaigners seeking greater transparency from policing bodies, and more widely to Freedom of Information campaigners who are trying to challenge 'neither confirm nor deny' responses to FOI…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Create Commons Photo Credit: Source
Privacy International has achieved an important victory for government transparency and information access rights. This victory stems from a long-running battle with the government to obtain information about the UK police’s purchase and use of IMSI catchers. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) recently issued a series of decisions, which agree with Privacy International that police forces cannot rely on a position of “neither confirm nor deny” (NCND…
Content Type: Explainer
What is an IMSI catcher?
An IMSI catcher is an intrusive piece of technology that can be used to locate and track all mobile phones that are switched on in a certain area.
An IMSI catcher does this by ‘pretending’ to be a mobile phone tower - tricking your phone into connecting to the IMSI-catcher, and then revealing your personal details without your knowledge.
IMSI catchers are indiscriminate surveillance tools that could be used to track who attends a political demonstration or a…
