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

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.

Long Read

Puzzle of the Girl with a Pearl Earring painting by Johannes Vermeer

The companies in control of our secret identities

Your personal data can be collected by companies from many different sources and shaped into a "secret identity". This is when companies use information about you to assume your personality traits and predict your behaviour, and sell this profile onto others. But who are the companies behind this practice?

News

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

11th June 2020

Why Amazon's temporary ban of police use of facial recognition is not enough

Examples of Abuse

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

"The Unsuspected Power of Big Data"

Article extract- translated from the original French. "A political big data company with close ties to the federal liberals and which worked on Emmanuel Macron's campaign in France is setting up its head office in Old Montreal to continue its growth and take advantage of Montreal's digital vitality

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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.

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