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We all need to understand the range of surveillance tools that police forces around the world can use to monitor and identify you if you attend a protest, and how you can better protect yourself from protest surveillance. Our partners and us have devised guides to educate people on the surveillance capacities police forces across the globe can use.

The 'Free to Protest' campaign highlights the range of surveillance tools that the police can use to monitor and identify you if you attend a protest, and how you can better protect yourself from protest surveillance.

Human rights defenders are continuously at risk of violence, intimidation and surveillance as a direct consequence of the work they do, with women or those opposing large corporations bearing the brunt of these forms of repression.

Privacy International spoke to four activists based in Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa to learn more about their understanding and experiences of surveillance. Their testimonies illustrate how the promises that came with innovation and the use of new technologies have not been enjoyed by all equally, and how some groups in society - such as human rights defenders - have experienced the impact of surveillance and the exploitation of data by governments and companies more severely than others.

Below is an outline of the main issues that these four activists brought to our attention which reflect the concerns raised previously by other organisations and HRDs across the world.

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

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

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. 

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

PI intervened in a case challenging the covert surveillance of activists and human rights defenders through intrusive technologies.