Long Reads
Following Margaret Atwood's comments that the response to Covid-19 does not amount to "deliberate totalitarianism” we wrote an open letter to her in response, agreeing with her but noting that we may be sleepwalking into a dystopia created by accident rather than design.
On 15th April Margaret Atwood, author of the Handmaid's Tale, gave an interview to BBC Radio 5 Live where she commented that ‘people may be making arrangements that aren’t too pleasant, but it’s not a deliberate totalitarianism’. You can read more about the interview in the Guardian. While we agree
Africa is a testing ground for technologies produced elsewhere: as a result, personal data of its people are increasingly stored in hundreds of databases.
Commercial interests seem to often overshadow the EU’s stance as a global privacy leader. After looking at Europes's shady funds to border forces in the Sahel area, Niger's new biometric voting system, and attempts to dismantle smugglers networks powered by Europe's gifts of surveillance, freelance
Universities in the UK and China, the Met Police, and surveillance companies are working on a government-funded programme developing "unconstrained face recognition technology".
The UK’s Metropolitan Police have began formally deploying Live Facial Recognition technology across London, claiming that it will only be used to identify serious criminals on “bespoke ‘watch lists’” and on “ small, targeted” areas. Yet, at the same time, the UK’s largest police force is also
PI presents its analysis of the Huduma Numba judgment in three parts: the clear wins, the parts that make some small steps forward but could have been better and the dissapointing losses.
Background Kenya’s National Integrated Identity Management Scheme (NIIMS) is a biometric database of the Kenyan population, that will eventually be used to give every person in the country a unique “Huduma Namba” for accessing services. This system has the aim of being the “single point of truth”, a
Facebook "Download Your Information" feature only gives you part of the picture. Information about advertisers uploading lists with your personal information is limited in time and prevents users from exercising their rights
In 2018, following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook announced the “Download Your Information” feature allowing users to download all the information that the company have on them since the creation of the account. All of it? It doesn’t seem so. Concerns were quickly raised when Facebook
CIS, PI's partner in India, posits health monitoring as surveillance and not merely as a “data problem.”
This piece was written by Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon, who are policy officers at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in India. The piece was originally published on the website Economic Policy Weekly India here. In order to bring out certain conceptual and procedural problems with health
PI calls on UN Committee to look into the nature of Heartbeat International’s activities in countries it will review.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is meeting from 10-28 February to review the progress of women’s rights in Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Eritrea, Kiribati, Latvia, Pakistan, Republic of Moldova, and Zimbabwe. At forums like this, the attempts of Heartbeat
Valentine’s Day is traditionally a day to celebrate relationships, but many relationships that begin romantically can quickly become controlling, with partners reading emails, checking texts and locations of social media posts. This can be just the beginning.
Today, Friday 14th February, Privacy International and Women’s Aid are launching a series of digital social media cards giving women practical information on how to help stay safe digitally from control and abuse.
Valentine’s Day is traditionally a day to celebrate relationships, but many relationships that begin romantically can quickly become controlling, with partners reading emails, checking texts and locations of social media posts. This can be just the beginning. Today, Friday 14th February, Privacy
The 2020 congressional elections in Peru were different in many ways. For the first time, rules that prohibit parties and candidates from advertising on radio and television through paid ads have been applied.
This piece was written by PI Partner Hiperderecho's Executive Director Miguel Morachimo and originally appeared here. Image from here. The recent congressional elections in Peru have been different in many ways. This is primarily because the rules that prohibit parties and candidates from
Where, when, and what you watch is becoming very interesting to political actors and the marketing companies they work with.
Photo by Scheier .hr on Unsplash Where, when, and what you watch is becoming very interesting to political actors and the marketing companies they work with. In the US for example, three-quarters of households have at least one smart TV. As you watch a show, the TVs watch you, and collect vast