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Content Type: Long Read
Privacy and security are both essential to protecting individuals, including their autonomy and dignity. Undermining privacy undermines the security of individuals, their devices and the broader infrastructure. People need privacy to freely secure themselves, their information, and fully enjoy other rights. However, a growing number of governments around the world are embracing hacking to facilitate their surveillance activities.
As a form of government surveillance, hacking presents…
Content Type: News & Analysis
In September 2019, PI published the report Your Mental Health for Sale. Our investigation looked into popular mental health websites and their data sharing practices.
Our findings suggest that, at the time of the research, most websites we looked at were using third party tracking for advertising purposes, sometimes relying on programmatic advertising technologies such as Real Time Bidding (RTB), sharing personal data with potentially thousands of actors. Some websites were also found sharing…
Content Type: Long Read
Background
Kenya’s National Integrated Identity Management Scheme (NIIMS) is a biometric database of the Kenyan population, that will eventually be used to give every person in the country a unique “Huduma Namba” for accessing services. This system has the aim of being the “single point of truth”, a biometric population register of every citizen and resident in the country, that then links to multiple databases across government and, potentially, the private sector.
NIIMS was introduced…
Content Type: Report
The changes discussed in this article are based on a second analysis performed in late November, 3 months after the original study Your Mental Health is for Sale and following the exact same methodology. All data collected can be found at the bottom of this page.
Change is possible
Back in September 2019 we published the report Your Mental Health is for Sale exposing how a majority of the top websites related to mental health in France, Germany and the UK share data for advertising purposes.…
Content Type: News & Analysis
On 30 January 2020, Kenya’s High Court handed down its judgment on the validity of the implementation of the National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS), known as the Huduma Namba. Privacy International submitted an expert witness testimony in the case. We await the final text of the judgment, but the summaries presented by the judges in Court outline the key findings of the Court. Whilst there is much there that is disappointing, the Court found that the implementation of NIIMS…
Content Type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI), the National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders Kenya (NCHRD-K), The Kenya Legal & Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS (KELIN), and Paradigm Initiative.
PI, NCHRD-K, KELIN, and Paradigm Initiative wish to bring their concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to privacy, and other rights and freedoms that privacy supports, for consideration in Kenya’s upcoming review at the 35th session of the Working…
Content Type: Long Read
A new study by Privacy International reveals how popular websites about depression in France, Germany and the UK share user data with advertisers, data brokers and large tech companies, while some depression test websites leak answers and test results with third parties. The findings raise serious concerns about compliance with European data protection and privacy laws.
This article is part of a research led by Privacy International on mental health websites and tracking. Read our…
Content Type: Report
The full report of Privacy International's study on how popular websites about depression in France, Germany and the UK share user data with advertisers, data brokers and large tech companies, while some depression test websites leak answers and test results with third parties. The findings raise serious concerns about compliance with European data protection and privacy laws.
Content Type: News & Analysis
This article is part of a research led by Privacy International on mental health websites and tracking. Read our full report.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 25 percent of the European population suffers from depression or anxiety each year, yet about 50% of major depressions remain untreated. This means that everyday thousands of people are looking for information about depression online. They take tests to find out how serious their symptoms are, they try to access…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Federal law enforcement is deploying powerful computer hacking tools to conduct domestic criminal and immigration investigations.
By Alex Betschen, Student Attorney, Civil Liberties & Transparency Clinic, University at Buffalo School of Law
Hacking by the government raises grave privacy concerns, creating surveillance possibilities that were previously the stuff of science fiction. It also poses a security risk, because hacking takes advantage of unpatched vulnerabilities in our…
Content Type: Press release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 21, 2018
CONTACTS:
Alex Betschen, Civil Liberties & Transparency Clinic, [email protected], 716–531–6649
Colton Kells, Civil Liberties & Transparency Clinic, [email protected], 585–766–5119
Abdullah Hasan, ACLU, [email protected], 646–905–8879
NEW YORK — Privacy International, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Civil Liberties & Transparency Clinic of the University at Buffalo School of Law filed a lawsuit today…
Content Type: News & Analysis
This piece was originally published on Just Security.
Ten years ago, an FBI official impersonated an Associated Press reporter to lure and track a teenager suspected of sending in prank bomb threats to his school. To find him, the FBI agent, posing as a reporter, sent the teenager links to a supposed story he was working on, but the links were infested with malware that once clicked on quickly exposed the teen’s location. More recently, the FBI has seized and modified websites so…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Recently, a text from a local telecommunications company inquired whether its subscribers knew that they could now enroll their voice so they could access various services securely and conveniently. This added a further dynamic to the on-going debate in several quarters on the accelerated adoption of biometrics in Kenya. Does Kenya have the necessary framework in place to safeguard the privacy and security of its citizens? The reality is, innovators will not wait for an optimal…
Content Type: Long Read
This piece was orignally published in Slate in February 2017
In 2015, the FBI obtained a warrant to hack the devices of every visitor to a child pornography website. On the basis of this single warrant, the FBI ultimately hacked more than 8,700 computers, resulting in a wave of federal prosecutions. The vast majority of these devices—over 83 percent—were located outside the United States, in more than 100 different countries. Now, we are in the midst of the first cases…
Content Type: Long Read
This piece originally appeared here.
On both sides of the Atlantic, we are witnessing the dramatic expansion of government hacking powers. In the United States, a proposed amendment to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure would permit the government to obtain a warrant, in certain circumstances, to hack unspecified numbers of electronic devices anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, across the pond, the British Parliament is currently debating the Investigatory…