Long Reads

Disclaimer: This piece was written in April 2017. Since publishing, further information has come out about Cambridge Analytica and the company's involvement in elections. Recently, the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica has been the centre of tons of debate around the use of profiling and micro

This briefing highlights opportunities for NGOs to raise issues related to the right to privacy before some selected UN human rights bodies that have the mandate and the capacity to monitor and provide recommendations and redress. The briefing provides some examples based on Privacy International’s

In this special briefing for International Women’s Day 2017, we explore through the work of the Privacy International Network some areas of concern being addressed in relation to privacy, surveillance, women’s rights, and gender. Coding Rights demonstrates the important of generating and

Introduction A growing number of governments around the world are embracing hacking to facilitate their surveillance activities. Yet hacking presents unique and grave threats to our privacy and security. It is far more intrusive than any other surveillance technique, capable of accessing information

This piece was orignally published in Slate in February 2017 In 2015, the FBI obtained a warrant to hack the devices of every visitor to a child pornography website. On the basis of this single warrant, the FBI ultimately hacked more than 8,700 computers, resulting in a wave of federal prosecutions

The use of IMSI catchers [1] to arrest individuals is rarely documented — as IMSI catchers are used secretively in most countries. The arrest of Colombian drug lord Henry López Londoño in Argentina is therefore a rare opportunity to understand both how IMSI catchers are used, and also the complexity

The move to digital payments, without an adequate legal framework, is a double-blow to privacy. India is proving to be the case study of how not to do the move to the cashless society. We are seeing in India the deeper drives to digital: linking financial transactions to identity. On the 8th

In July 2015, representatives of a private company met in a parking lot in Pretoria, South Africa to sell phone tapping technology to an interested private buyer. What they did not know was that this buyer was a police officer. The police had been tipped off that the company was looking to offload

Tech firms and governments are keen to use algorithms and AI, everywhere. We urgently need to understand what algorithms, intelligence, and machine learning actually are so that we can disentangle the optimism from the hype. It will also ensure that we come up with meaningful responses and

This piece was written by Ashley Gorski , who is an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, and PI legal officer Scarlet Kim and originally appeared in The Guardian here . In recent weeks, the Hollywood film about Edward Snowden and the movement to pardon the NSA whistleblower have renewed