Long Reads
Intrusive surveillance technology is increasingly used to prosecute activists, protesters and human rights defenders.
Intrusive surveillance technology is increasingly used during protests around the world, and we’ve been tracking its use around the world for years. This technology is often being deployed in secret, without a clear legal basis and without the safeguards and oversight applied to other surveillance
The CrowdStrike incident earlier this year had major implications for governments and businesses across the world. Here, we look at what it tells us about the security and robustness of the modern internet.
What happened? On 19 July 2024, American cybersecurity company CrowdStrike released an update to its CrowdStrike Falcon software that ultimately caused 8.5 million computers running Microsoft Windows to crash. The damage done was both deep and wide: deep because the computers affected were unable to
The concept of privacy is essential for Indigenous peoples to exercise their right to autonomy and self-determination, enabling them to better protect their cultural heritage and prevent external control, exploitation, and surveillance of their lands and identities.
In 2019, the Waorani achieved a huge legal victory against the Ecuadorian government. They opposed the sale of millions of hectares of their rainforest to new oil companies, a forest that forms part of the home and territory of seven different Indigenous peoples in the southern Ecuadorian Amazon
On International Migrants Day, we reflect on wins and losses in the fight against violations of migrants’ rights.
18th December is International Migrants Day, a day to recognize both the contributions and continued struggles of migrants across the world. Migrants continue to face an increased level of human rights violations through hostile immigration policies and practices. At borders and beyond, their
In this briefing, we identify the most significant concerns on the UN Countering Terrorist Travel Programme (CTTP), and put forward a range of recommendations to mitigate some of the human rights risks associated with the surveillance of travellers.
In this new briefing, we identify the most significant concerns on the UN Countering Terrorist Travel Programme (CTTP), and put forward a range of recommendations to mitigate some of the human rights risks associated with the surveillance of travellers. We based our briefing on publicly available
AI chatbots are now being used everyday across different industries and recreationally. We consider the growing possibility that these AI tools are the next home of the multi-billion-dollar advertising industry.
Introduction In early October this year, Google announced its AI Overviews would now have ads. AI companies have been exploring ways to monetise their AI tools to compensate for their eye watering costs, and advertising seems to be a part of many of these plans. Microsoft have even rolled out an
EdTech systems are often less about teaching than they are monitoring. Here, we explore the increasing web of surveillance children are experiencing in schools.
Increasingly, EdTech systems are less about teaching than about monitoring, security and ‘safety’ – although those aims are often mixed with wider educational claims. For instance, one company offering “high quality surveillance systems and CCTV for schools including sophisticated infra-red cameras
Private companies, including Big Tech, are responsible for a large number of digital health tools. While there may be benefits to health, there are also potential threats to your privacy from these initiatives.
In this piece, we outline some of these tools and give some examples of Big Tech involvement in digital health and consider what sort of future a Big Tech dominated vision of digital health might hold for your rights, your autonomy and our society
Introduction Harnessing new digital technology to improve people’s health is now commonplace across the world. Countries and international organisations alike are devising digital health strategies and looking to emerging technology to help solve tricky problems within healthcare. At the same time
Expanding beyond GPS ankle tags, the Home Office has since Autumn 2022 been issuing so-called non-fitted devices (NFDs) to migrants who are on immigration bail and who are subject to electronic monitoring conditions. We undertook some technical research into NFDs to investigate the intrusiveness of this surveillance technology.
Introduction With the ongoing expansion of GPS tagging under the UK Home Office's electronic monitoring programme, it has increasingly deployed non-fitted devices (NFDs) that track a person's GPS location and request frequent biometric verification in the form of fingerprint scans. The NFDs deployed
This piece highlights concerns over the increasing use of data-intensive technologies in educational spaces (EdTech) and examines - among other things - how their unchecked implementation can jeopardize students' rights and education through potential privacy violations, discrimination, and the lack of student input in the adoption of these technologies.
Education is a fundamental human right outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 26), which states that everyone has the right to education. Schools play a core role in the education of children, but it’s also in schools that children are encouraged to learn to work with others