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On 24 September 2021, PI submitted a complaint to the UK’s data protection authority - the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) challenging the Home Office’s refusal to provide information about its meetings with tech companies around encryption.
 

Human rights defenders are continuously at risk of violence, intimidation and surveillance as a direct consequence of the work they do, with women or those opposing large corporations bearing the brunt of these forms of repression.

Privacy International spoke to four activists based in Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa to learn more about their understanding and experiences of surveillance. Their testimonies illustrate how the promises that came with innovation and the use of new technologies have not been enjoyed by all equally, and how some groups in society - such as human rights defenders - have experienced the impact of surveillance and the exploitation of data by governments and companies more severely than others.

Below is an outline of the main issues that these four activists brought to our attention which reflect the concerns raised previously by other organisations and HRDs across the world.

Governments are secretly collaborating with private companies. Here is why PI is concerned about surveillance outsourcing, and why together we urgently must expose them.

Powerful countries encourage and enable other governments to deploy advanced surveillance capabilities without adequate safeguards.

Privacy International filed complaints with multiple data protection regulators to investigate potential GDPR infringements by data brokers, ad-tech companies and credit referencing agencies. 

People all over the world share with menstruation apps their deeply intimate data - the date of their last periods, dates and details pertaining to their sex lives, their moods, their health. This data is being ruthlessly exploited and shared with third parties to target and profile people. 

After months of research, we filed complaints against seven of data broker companies: Acxiom, Criteo, Equifax, Experian, Oracle, Quantcast, and Tapad.

A case that reached the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights analysing the UK’s mass interception program, first exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, relating to people’s rights to privacy and freedom of expression. 

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights holds Colombia accountable for arbitrary intelligence activities against human rights defenders. PI filed an amicus in this case challenging the surveillance of human rights defenders in Colombia.