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Content Type: Examples
Following the Trump re-election campaign's "block" purchase of Youtube homepage ad space - known as its masthead - in early 2020, Youtube has announced that it will be “retiring” reservations for full-day advertisements on its coveted homepage ad spot beginning in 2021, a change it said it communicated to advertisers earlier this year.
Instead, advertisers will only be able to buy that spot on a per-impression basis, making it harder for a single advertiser to dominate the…
Content Type: Examples
The Trump re-election campaign reportedly purchased advertising space on the Youtube homepage for early November, ensuring that Trump-affiliated political ads will be featured prominently on the platform prior to Election Day on November 3rd.
Ads on the Youtube masthead (as the video on top of the homepage is known) benefit from wide exposure and visibility. While the amount spent by the Trump campaign in Youtube advertising in the key dates prior to the election is unclear, masthead…
Content Type: Examples
On Election Day, there were some reports of Facebook users not seeing the "Why am I seeing this ad" information tab on political ads appearing on their newsfeeds.
Affected users were shown an error message stating "You can't use this feature right now. We limit how often you can post, comment or do other things in a given amount of time in order to help protect the community from spam. You can try again later. If you think this doesn't go against our Community Standards let us know…
Content Type: Examples
Less than a week before the election, the Democratic Party reported that Facebook's social media advertising systems had prevented the campaign from running some ads, allegedly resulting in the loss of more than $500,000 in potential campaign donations.
According to Facebook, the flaws resulted from a change in its political ads policy for the final week of the campaign. The policy change was intended to prevent political advertisers from uploading new ads in the week…
Content Type: Case Study
Por favor describe brevemente tu trabajo y/o activismo y las temáticas y cuestiones que ahí abordas.
Yo soy investigador en una organización dedicada a temas relacionados con la defensa del territorio y protección ambiental. Operamos en diferentes regiones, incluyendo regiones que han sido históricamente violentadas por temas del conflicto armado y que recientemente experimentan un pico en diferentes tipos conflictos ambientales. Nuestro trabajo consiste en…
Content Type: Case Study
Centro Prodh es una asociación sin fines de lucro que promueve los derechos humanos, y que ha acompañado algunos de los casos más emblemáticos en México. Quizá a raíz del impacto positivo de su trabajo, el centro se ha visto enfrentado a riesgos serios de vigilancia. En su declaración de fin de misión después de una visita a México, el anterior relator especial de la ONU sobre la situación de los defensores de derechos humanos, expresó preocupación en relación al Centro…
Content Type: Report
One name in tech has become embroiled in controversy: Palantir, a big-data analytics outfit.
Palantir weren’t that well known in the UK until the Covid-19 pandemic, when they were thrust into the national spotlight after the UK Government granted them access to reportedly unprecedented quantities of NHS patient data for processing and analysis in response to the novel Coronavirus.
Palantir isn’t just working with the NHS, yet despite their extensive work with the government could potentially…
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: Examples
After a two year investigation into credit referencing agencies (CRAs) Experian, Equifax and TransUnion - initiated in part pursuant to a complaint filed by PI against Equifax and Experian in November 2018 - the ICO has published a report finding "widespread and systemic data protection failings" in the data broking sector. Pursuant to its investigation, the ICO issued an enforcement notice against Experian, requesting the company to achieve compliance with data…
Content Type: Frequently Asked Questions
On 27 October 2020, the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) issued a report into three credit reference agencies (CRAs) - Experian, Equifax and TransUnion - which also operate as data brokers for direct marketing purposes.
After our initial reaction, below we answer some of the main questions regarding this report.
Content Type: News & Analysis
Privacy International (PI) welcomes today's report from the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) into three credit reference agencies (CRAs) which also operate as data brokers for direct marketing purposes. As a result, the ICO has ordered the credit reference agency Experian to make fundamental changes to how it handles people's personal data within its offline direct marketing services.
It is a long overdue enforcement action against Experian.…
Content Type: Video
Dr. Andrea Swartzendruber is the principal investigator for the Pregnancy Resource Center Evaluation at Emory University's Center for Reproductive Health Research in the Southeast. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Georgia College of Public Health and an adjunct professor at Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. She has recently published and presented research findings on pregnancy resource centers (also known…
Content Type: Case Study
Sebastián Gómez is a land rights defender. He is based in Colombia.
Qn: Please briefly describe your work and the issues/topics you work on.
I am researcher for an organisation working on topics related to the defense of the territory and environmental protection. We operate in different regions, including those which have been historically subjected to violence due to the armed conflict and which are now experiencing a spike in a range of environmental conflicts. Our work consists of…
Content Type: Case Study
amaBhungane is an independent, non-profit newsroom based in South Africa. amaBhungane plays a key role in exposing corruption, promoting transparency and accountability at all levels of government. In recent years, amaBhungane has been at the forefront of privacy litigation in amaBhungane Centre and Sole Stephen v. Minister of Justice and Correctional Services and others, a challenge to South Africa’s expansive surveillance laws.
Qn: Please briefly describe your work and the issues/…
Content Type: Case Study
Ananda Badudu is an activist, musician and former journalist. In September 2019, he started a crowdfunding campaign page to support student protesters taking part in demonstrations against the Indonesian House of Representatives.
Qn: Please briefly describe your work and the issues/topics you work on.
I’ve been full-time musician for 2 years. Before that I was a journalist from 2010 to 2016, first at Tempo, then at Vice. In late September 2019, I took part in a crowd-funding campaign…
Content Type: Case Study
Centro Prodh is a non-profit civil association which promotes human rights, and has been involved in some of the most emblematic cases in Mexico. The impact of their work is only matched by the severity of surveillance threats they face. In his end-of-mission statement after a visit to Mexico, the former Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders expressed specific concern about Centro Prodh in light of its being targeted for its work on enforced disappearances,…
Content Type: Video
Find out more:
About PI's work on smart cities here: https://privacyinternational.org/learn/smart-cities
About Ellie's work here: https://www.urbaninnovationandpolicy.net/ellie-cosgrave
About Lakshmi's work here: https://aru.ac.uk/people/lakshmi-priya-rajendran
And Rob's work here: http://www.kitchin.org/
And you can support PI's work here: support.privacyinternational.org
Content Type: Examples
In early August, when the UK government announced it was purchasing 90-minute saliva-based COVID-19 tests called LamPORE and 5,000 lab-free machines to process them, supplied by DNANudge, clinical researchers were dismayed to find that there is no publicly available data about the accuracy or performance of these tests. While the tests could be a game-changer by offering rapid, on-the-spot testing with less discomfort for patients, no scientific research was offered to validate the tests, not…
Content Type: Examples
Questions have been raised about an irregular process by which the Trump administration awarded a $10.2 million dollar six-month contract to Pittsburgh-based TeleTracking Technologies. TeleTracking has traditionally sold software to help hospitals track patient status; under the new contract it is collecting key data about COVID-19 from US hospitals, bypassing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to which such data is normally reported. The contract was awarded by the Department of…