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Content Type: Examples
In a study of the data Uber collected on a Geneva driver who obtained his data via a Subject Access Request, the Gig Economy Project finds that the data is difficult for drivers to parse, contains many inaccuracies, and is incomplete. In addition, obtaining the data in the first place is near impossible. Personaldata.io, which helped the driver analyse his data, believes Uber's response is in violation of the rights guaranteed under GDPR.https://braveneweurope.com/uber-drivers-and-data-can-…
Content Type: Examples
Foodinho, the Italian food delivery subsidiary of the Spanish company Glovo, continues to accumulate millions of euros in fines for infringements of labour law such as collecting and misusing riders' data. New research studying Glovo's app indicates that the company appears to have created its own hidden scoring system so evaluate couriers' performance, and shares personally identified riders' after-hours location with Google and other unauthorised third-party trackers.https://algorithmwatch.…
Content Type: Examples
A former TikTok moderator in Kenya has threatened a lawsuit against TikTok's owner, ByteDance, alleging that he has developed PTSD as a result of his work for the company and that he was unfairly dismissed for advocating for better working conditions. In a letter, his lawyer alleges that the job required him to watch 250 to 350 videos per hour, the vast majority of them "horrific in nature".https://time.com/6293271/tiktok-bytedance-kenya-moderator-lawsuit/ Publication: Time MagazineWriter…
Content Type: Examples
Uber Eats delivery drivers in northern French cities went on strike on October 22, 2023 to protest falling wages since the platform changed its policies to effectively reduce its per-kilometre compensation. Drivers complain the platform is less transparent since the changes.https://actu.fr/economie/livreurs-uber-eats-en-greve-dans-le-nord-ils-denoncent-une-baisse-de-leur-remuneration_60249320.html Publication: Lille Actu
Content Type: Examples
Companies like the Australian data services company Appen are part of a vast, hidden industry of low-paid workers in some of the globe's cheapest labour markets who label images, video, and text to provide the datasets used to train the algorithms that power new bots. Appen, which has 1 million contributors, includes among its clients Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta. According to Grand View Research, the global data collection and labelling market was valued at $2.22 billion in 2022 and is…
Content Type: Examples
Trailing well after their European counterparts, US and Canadian trade unions are just now beginning to push for protections against workplace surveillance. The Communications Workers of America has won requirements that managers notify workers when recording their calls and a guarantee that those calls will not be used to evaluate or discipline workers. AFL-CIO has created a technology institute to build its expertise and policies on AI and other technologies; it will also offer training for…
Content Type: Examples
French data protection agency CNIL has fined Amazon's French warehouse management unit €32 million, or about 3% of its turnover, for its "excessively intrusive" surveillance of the performance of its thousands of staff. The system relied on data collected from the scanners warehouse staff use to process packages. CNIL said the surveillance placed workers under continuous pressure and forced them to justify absences, as the scanners timed inacctivity to the second and also penalised workers for…
Content Type: Examples
A new poll from the trade union Prospect finds that 58% of UK workers believe government should protect jobs by regulating the use of generative AI. Only 12% believe government should not interfere. The poll also found that workers are deeply uncomfortable with being surveilled at work and about companies' use of software to automate decisions about hiring and promotion.https://prospect.org.uk/news/public-call-for-government-regulation-of-generative-ai-at-work Publication: Prospect
Content Type: Examples
Following a February 2024 ruling by the Information Commissioner's Office against Serco Leisure, national leisure centre chains are among dozens of UK companies removing or reviewing the use of facial recognition and fingerprints to monitor staff attendance. The ICO found that the Serco subsidiary had unlawfully processed the data of more than 2,000 employees at 38 centres.https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/16/leisure-centres-scrap-biometric-systems-to-keep-tabs-on-staff-amid-uk-data…
Content Type: Examples
The Argentinian startup Nippy offers delivery drivers access to rest stops including free coffee, phone charging stations, and toilets in return for downloading its app and allowing it to sell the data the app collects to partners in insurance, financial services, and telecommunications. The result is to give companies like Mastercard and Movistar insight into gig workers' income in the areas where Nippy operates in Argentina, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. The services Nippy's rest stops…
Content Type: Examples
Microsoft pitched the use of OpenAI's DALL-E software to support battlefield operations of the US Department of Defense, in seeming contravention of OpenAI's ban against working in the military field. One of the potential use cases proposed by Microsoft is to use DALL-E, OpenAI's image generation model, to train battle management systems. The efficacy, reliability and ethics of such a use of private AI are questioned by various experts. https://theintercept.com/2024/04/10/microsoft-openai-…
Content Type: Examples
Fusion Technology will earn $159.8 million over 5 years to work with the US FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS). It will support the FBI in developing the National Data Exchange ("an investigative tool for agencies to search, analyze, and share criminal justice information"), the Law Enforcement Online System (for information sharing between local, state, tribal, federal, and international criminal justice agencies) and "Crime Data apps".https://www.biometricupdate.com/202404/…
Content Type: Examples
US data analytics firm Palantir, known for its numerous contracts with intelligence agencies, military forces, or law enforcement and immigration authorities, has been awarded a £330m contract to run a new mass database for the UK's health service (NHS). The deal comes four years after Palantir was awarded a £1 contract during the Covid-19 pandemic to build an analytics platform for the NHS. People and organisations across the political spectrum have voiced significant privacy and data…
Content Type: Video
The case dealt with a Russian law obliging telecommunications service providers to indiscriminately retain content and communications data for certain time periods, as well as a 2017 disclosure order by the Russian Federal Security Service requiring Telegram Messenger company to disclose technical information which would facilitate “the decoding of communications”.Links:PI case pageECtHR judgment in the Podchasov casePI's work on encryptionPI's report on End-to-End Encryption (E2EE)More…
Content Type: Advocacy
In September 2020, the Secretary-General in September 2021 released his report Our Common Agenda, and it proposed a Global Digital Compact (GDC) which was expected to “outline shared principles for an open, free and secure digital future for all”. The GDC is expected to be agreed at the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024. Following some initial consultations, a Zero Draft of the Global Digital Compact was published on 1 April 2024, and the co-facilitators outlined…
Content Type: Advocacy
On 10 April 2024, the European Parliament adopted the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, a package of reforms expanding the criminalisation and digital surveillance of migrants.
Despite civil society organisationsʼ repeated warnings, the Pact “will normalise the arbitrary use of immigration detention, including for children and families, increase racial profiling, use ʻcrisisʼ procedures to enable pushbacks, and return individuals to so called ʻsafe third countriesʼ where they are at risk of…
Content Type: Advocacy
Privacy International (PI) welcomes the opportunity to provide input to the forthcoming report the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related tolerance to the 56th session of Human Rights Council which will examine and analyse the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and non-discrimination and racial equality, as well as other international human rights standards.AI applications are becoming a part of everyday life:…
Content Type: Long Read
In 2023, Privacy International continued to produce real change in the world. We kept challenging governments and corporations that use data and technology to exploit us; pushed for new legislative standards; educated and campaigned with others.
And, we produced HUGE impact that directly affects each of us.
Here's a selection of our biggest achievements from last year.
French Data Protection regulator (CNIL) fined Doctissimo and Criteo
Following PI’s complaint, in May 2023, CNIL fined French…
Content Type: Video
LinksFind out more about encryption:Computerphile on YouTube is a computer science professor with a range of useful and accessible videos on encryptionCloudflare have a helpful learning centre including this article on how encryption works and why cloudflare use Lava lamps to generate keysThis is a helpful article on Diffie-Hellman including a diagram of the colours demonstration, which Ed discusses during the podcastThis article is great for learning more about hashingAnd if you're interested…
Content Type: Examples
A new report finds that Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco, Malawi and Zambia collectively spend over $1 billion annually on digital surveillance technologies, including mobile phone spyware, internet interception devices, and biometric identity systems, as well as social media monitoring, AI-powered facial recognition, and automated car number plate recognition. The governments use these technologies to spy on, harass, and arrest opposition politicians, journalists, and activists, even where doing so…
Content Type: Examples
Despite under-funding basic services such as health care and education, governments in Nigeria, Ghana, Morococo, Malawi, and Zambia collectively spend over $1 billion a year on digital surveillance technologies supplied by companies in the US, UK, China, the EU, and Israel. Nigeria alone spends $12 per citizen annually. The African states, each of which has its own distinct surveillance profile, also use their surveillance technology to spy on, harass, and arrest opposition politicians,…
Content Type: Examples
In preparing to host COP28, the UAE, where individuals may be prosecuted for unauthorised protests, speech deemed to spark or encourage social unrest, or offending foreign states, said it would designate areas of the site where it would permit demonstrations. Campaigners remained concerned that protesters on human rights and environmental issues would be arrested, detained, or surveilled, especially digitally. Guidelines published on the UN's COP28 website and drafted by the UAE's team reminded…
Content Type: Examples
Preparations for COP28, held in the UAE, where protests are rarely allowed, included concerns that environmental protesters would be surveilled and/or arrested despite plans to provide designated areas managed by the UN where peaceful assembly would be allowed. Activists wanted to denounce the UAE's treatment of migrant workers, the continued production of fossil fuels, and the detention of civil society actors.https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/11/24/repressive-state-activists-raise-concerns-…
Content Type: Examples
Students at Columbia walked out during a number of classes, including a lecture delivered by Hillary Clinton as part of her global affairs class, to protest the university's alleged role in "shaming" pro-Palestinian protesters. The protesters demanded immediate legal support for students whose photographs were displayed on video screens on trucks parked near the campus with the words "Columbia's biggest antisemites". The students had signed a declaration in support of Palestine. https://…
Content Type: Examples
Liberty has challenged the use of a statutory instrument to bring in new restrictions on protests even though the same provisions had been rejected months earlier in the House of Lords. The new law allows police to impose conditions on a protest if it causes "more than minor" hindrances or delays. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/29/high-court-challenge-to-constitutionally-unprecedented-uk-anti-protest-lawPublication: The Guardian Writer: Daniel Boffey
Content Type: Examples
In November 2023, as protests over the Israel-Hamas war ramped up, the UK's Met Commissioner announced police would analyse social media and use facial recognition searches to identify and detain "troublemakers" committing hate crimes or supporting banned terror organisations. To date, 70-80 suspects have been arrested in London over hate crimes relating to the conflict.https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/palestine-israel-protests-met-police-mark-rowley-liverpool-street-station-b1117686.…
Content Type: Examples
Between October 7 and December 4 2023 the New York City Police Department used drones at least 13 times to make 239 arrests at pro-Palestine protests, and more than tripled its use of drones in the previous year. Police have handed over the drone footage as evidence in 158 cases where protesters have been criminally charged. Critics say the NYPD, which in five years has incresaed its fleet of drones from 13 to 30, is increaingly behaving like a national intelligence agency. Current New York…
Content Type: Examples
Tensions at educational institutions across the US following the the opening of the Israel-Hama conflict in Gaza on October 7 are accompanied by student concerns, particularly among those protesting the mass killing of Palestinians, that their speech is being intensely policed. Conscious of the prejudice and surveillance directed against them in the years following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Muslims in particular feel unsafe and under pressure to appear less identifiable. That surveillance…
Content Type: Examples
New York state governor Kathy Hochul has announced $75 million in additional funding for surveillance technology and staff to be used to target pro-Palestinian protesters and activists, describing the move as fighting anti-semitism. The news came a day after the Biden administration announced new support for campus surveillance programmes. Hochul also provided for a judge to review policies and procedures relating to antisemitism at City University of New York - but not Islamophobia.https://www…