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Privacy International intervened in a landmark case brought in the UK courts by asylum seekers against mobile phone seizures and data extraction. Judgment was handed down on 25 March 2022. The High Court found that the secret and blanket policy of the UK Home Office to seize and search migrants' phones breached Article 8 ECHR and data protection laws.

Governments are secretly collaborating with private companies. Here is why PI is concerned about surveillance outsourcing, and why together we urgently must expose them.

UK local authorities (Councils) are looking at people’s social media accounts, such as Facebook, as part of their intelligence gathering and investigation tactics in areas such as council tax payments, children’s services, benefits and monitoring protests and demonstrations.

In some cases, local authorities will go so far as to use such information to make accusations of fraud and withhold urgently needed support from families who are living in extreme poverty.

Privacy International filed complaints with multiple data protection regulators to investigate potential GDPR infringements by data brokers, ad-tech companies and credit referencing agencies. 

The use of data and new technologies are driving a revolution in immigration enforcement, and affected people are going to be at greater risk.

People all over the world share with menstruation apps their deeply intimate data - the date of their last periods, dates and details pertaining to their sex lives, their moods, their health. This data is being ruthlessly exploited and shared with third parties to target and profile people. 

There is a growing push towards identity systems around the world - leading to some of the world's largest biometric databases, as well as other technologies that can be used to track and profile individuals and communities.

From facial recognition to social media monitoring, from remote hacking to the use of mobile surveillance equipment called 'IMSI catchers', UK police forces are using an ever-expanding array of surveillance tools to spy on us as we go about our everyday lives.

After months of research, we filed complaints against seven of data broker companies: Acxiom, Criteo, Equifax, Experian, Oracle, Quantcast, and Tapad.

PI together with ARTICLE 19 intervened at the European Court of Human Rights to submit that digital device seizures and extraction performed at the border interfere with the rights to privacy and freedom of expression, in particular when performed on journalists.