Profiling

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Explainer

What does your face say about you? Phrenology, physiognomy and society

47m47s

Advertisers on Facebook: who the heck are you and how did you get my data?

Investigating brands using Facebook for advertising, exposing how difficult it is to understand how our data's used and demanding Facebook make it easier to exercise our rights

Reports and Analysis

Key Resources

Timeline of complaints against AdTech

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became enforceable on May 25th 2018. Since then, complaints against the AdTech industry are piling up, attacking intrusive tracking and profiling practices, unfairly obtained consent and insufficient legal basis, all of which we consider to infringe GDPR. This timeline is a list of some of the key actions taken against this ecosystem, a reminder of the challenges that AdTech companies are facing and a demonstration that GDPR still has to be implemented and enforced.

Case Study

Mobile App Monetisation - Covert trackers in your pocket

Some apps on your phone have code from third parties that covertly tracks and collects data about you. With little to no transparency, your data is put up for sale. It can be used to target you with personalised ads, or even for policing if law enforcement happens to be the buyer.

Hand passing a small wrapped item to another hand

Case Study

Tracking as a service: ShareThis to be profiled!

If you've never made a website, you might have not heard of AddThis or ShareThis, but chances are you've encountered them. These services offer the "share" buttons that easily integrates into websites. However, this feature is also used by these companies to track visitors across the web.

News

20th May 2021

New Android 12 privacy features don't mean Google actually care about your privacy

17th December 2020

Press Release: European Commission green lights Google and Fitbit merger in a game-changing and disappointing decision for the rights of millions of Europeans

27th October 2020

UK data regulator takes enforcement action to rein in data brokers' use of people's personal data

24th September 2020

Facebook response on advertising: A failure to acknowledge responsibility

4th August 2020

Banning TikTok? It's time to fix the out-of-control data exploitation industry - not a symptom of it

15th June 2020

Ethnic minorities at greater risk of oversurveillance after protests

Examples of Abuse

Want to know how this translate in the real world? Here is the latest example in the news.

US police expand surveillance in response to Black Lives Matter protests

During the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020, US police took advantage of a lack of regulation and new technologies to expand the scope of people and platforms they monitor; details typically emerge through lawsuits, public records disclosures, and stories released by police department PR

See more examples of abuse

Our Advocacy

Presentación de información a la Relatoría Especial de Derechos Económicos, Sociales, Culturales y Ambientales (DESCA) de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) sobre la situación de los DESCA en la región

PI y sus partners acogen el llamado de la Relatoría Especial de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) sobre la situación de los Derechos Económicos, Sociales, Culturales y Ambientales en la región.