Skip to main content
Home

Sign up to Newsletter

  • SEARCH
  • NEWS
  • ACT
  • CAMPAIGNS
  • LEARN
  • IMPACT
  • ABOUT
  • DONATE
social media intelligence graphic

Social Media Surveillance

The data generated through peoples' use of social media becomes valuable intelligence to others, who want to monitor, profile, and manipulate.

Learn

Explainer

How social media monitoring can be used at a protest

Explainer

The use of social media monitoring by local authorities – who is a target?

Explainer

Never heard of TrueCaller? They might have heard about you. Here is how you can unlist yourself

Explainer graphic

Social media intelligence (SOCMINT) explainer

Explainer

Social Media Intelligence

Victory! A Clearview update: some (provisionally) good news from the UK

 

Links

Read more about the ICO's provisional decision

Support our work

You can find out more about Clearview by listening to our podcast: The end of privacy? The spread of facial recognition

More

Report and Analysis

Long Read
Report cover

Your NEW guide to surveillance human rights standards is here

A glimpse into what you can find in the new version of PI’s Guide to International Law and Surveillance. From surveillance of public spaces to spyware and encryption, it’s got everything!

Continue reading
Long Read
People pointing at laptop screen

Social media monitoring in the UK: the invisible surveillance tool increasingly deployed by government

Privacy International presents how the use of social media monitoring by governments and companies is an increasingly prevalent one, and as this article explores, largely unregulated. 

Continue reading
Key Resources
A black female content creator at her desk in front of a camera with an ominous black box with data points and an eye on one face looking at her behind her shoulder

Content Creators Working for the Algorithm

Creators who produce content for big online platforms, from video game livestreamers on Twitch to adult content producers on platforms like OnlyFans, often find themselves forced to share a lot of data, putting their privacy and security at risk while being given limited information as to how this data is being used.

Continue reading
Long Read
Lecture Photo Cover

Revealed: The EU Training Regime Teaching Neighbours How to Spy

Hundreds of slides obtained by Privacy International (PI) from an EU law enforcement training agency show how surveillance techniques are taught to security authorities in neighbouring countries.

Continue reading
Key Resources
Laptop screen and phone

A guide for migrants and asylum rights organisations about privacy settings

This guide is for anyone concerned about their social media accounts being monitored by public authorities, but it’s especially targeted at people from minority and migrant communities who may be disproportionately affected by various forms of surveillance.

Continue reading
Long Read
Tents and sign "Welcome to Greece"

10 threats to migrants and refugees

This article presents some of the tools and techniques deployed as part surveillance practices and data-driven immigration policies routinely leading to discriminatory treatment of peoplee and undermining peoples’ dignity, with a particular focus on the UK.

Continue reading
View more

News

4th April 2025

The US border surveillance expansion has global implications

18th March 2022

The Clearview/Ukraine partnership - How surveillance companies exploit war

17th December 2021

All we want for Christmas is... Clearview AI to be banned (and looks like it's happening)!

6th December 2021

The ICO’s announcement about Clearview AI is a lot more than just a £17 million fine

29th November 2021

Victory! The ICO provisionally issues £17 million fine against facial recognition company Clearview AI

19th August 2021

Afghanistan: What Now After Two Decades of Building Data-Intensive Systems?

25th May 2021

Privacy International and others file legal complaints across Europe against controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI

16th April 2019

Communities at risk: How encroaching surveillance is putting a squeeze on activists

Examples of Abuse

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

Fracking company and Lancashire police collaborate to surveil protesters

The energy company Cuadrilla used Facebook to surveil anti-fracking protesters in Blackpool and forwarded the gathered intelligence to Lancashire Police, which arrested more than 450 protesters at Cuadrilla's Preston New Road site over a period of three years in a policing operation that cost more
Read more
See more examples of abuse

Our Advocacy

PI's Response to the UK Government's Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill

Summary

The UK is once again seeking to expand its surveillance powers. Seven years after the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 became law, the UK Government is now trying to amend it in ways which would further undermine already insufficient bulk surveillance safeguards and introduce a notification regime which could be used to prevent companies from implementing important privacy and security measures. PI is joining other UK civil society organisations in objecting to this problematic Bill.

Read more
View more

Get Involved

  • Act with Us
  • Donate
  • Join
Back to top button

Newsletter

Click here to sign-up to our mailing-list!

Mastodon

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Mastodon
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Youtube

Navigation

  • SEARCH
  • NEWS
  • ACT
  • CAMPAIGNS
  • LEARN
  • IMPACT
  • ABOUT
  • DONATE

How We Fight

  • Our Global Reach
  • Advocacy and Litigation
  • Research
  • Legal Action
  • Our Demands

About

  • Our Impact
  • Governance
  • People
  • Opportunities
  • Financial
  • Service Status

Privacy

  • How We Use Your Data
  • How We Learned
  • Why Cookies?!

Resources

  • Why Privacy Matters
  • Learn about issues
  • Learn about Data Protection
  • Browse Examples of Abuse
  • Listen to our podcast

Contact Us

62 Britton Street,
London, EC1M 5UY
UK

Charity Registration No: 1147471

Click here to contact us.

Click here for media and press enquiries.