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Content type: Advocacy
The powers set out in the Investigatory Powers Act are wide ranging, opaque and lacking in adequate safeguards. The Government have now published updated Draft Codes of Practice for certain parts of the Act. Unfortunately, the Codes do little to solve the Act’s problems. Instead, they add little transparency, occasionally expand powers, and undermine some of the limited safeguards in the Investigatory Powers Act. These Codes demand close scrutiny. The unusually short timeframe for…
Content type: News & Analysis
This comment by Privacy International Executive Director Gus Hosein ran in Ciper Chile on 19 May, 2014
The economic benefits of being included in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) with the US are remarkable. The ease of travel allows for the exchange of tourism between the countries, and other new economic opportunities through reduced friction caused by visa approval processes. Nonetheless, this program is often used as a mechanism to seek more data on the citizenry of participating…
Content type: News & Analysis
The following article written by Carly Nyst, Privacy International's Legal Director, originially appeared on the Future Tense blog on Slate:
The news that the CIA is no longer using vaccination programs as a front for spying operations may come as a relief to many humanitarian workers. Yet their fears should not be completely assuaged, because the CIA’s activities—which undoubtedly threatened the safety of humanitarian workers and those they seek to help—pale in comparison to the…
Content type: News & Analysis
2nd March 2015
UPDATE: Since the original publication of this post in early February, over fifty additional national and international human rights organisations have joined us and called on all governments to support the creation of a UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy.
This recent wave of support, bringing the total number up to 63, comes at a critical time. As the UN Human Rights Council begins its 28th session in Geneva today, the…
Content type: News & Analysis
This piece originally appeared in Open Democracy here.
As the UK Parliament returns from its summer break, everyone’s back to talking about Brexit. But there’s another policy of existential significance to our democracy that we really need to be talking about. I refer here to the innocuously named ‘Investigatory Powers Bill’. The House of Lords have been debating the ‘bulk powers’ — what we would call the mass surveillance measures — of the Bill over the recent days. We are literally…
Content type: News & Analysis
18 October 2013
The following is an excerpt from an article written that originally was published by IFEX, and is written by Carly Nyst, Head of International Advocacy at Privacy International:
The reality of the modern world is that governments – both of our own countries, and of foreign states – have greater capabilities to carry out invasive surveillance of citizens, no matter where they reside or what flag they pledge to. And caught in the cross-fire of the expanding surveillance…
Content type: News & Analysis
Early on Wednesday morning the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill was approved by Pakistan’s National Assembly. The Bill, which is almost universally acknowledged as “controversial” had been criticised by opposition members, industry and civil society at numerous stages. Civil society organisations from around the world released two joint statements in April and December last year expressing their concerns. Despite the chorus of criticism, very little has changed in the Bill during its…
Content type: Press release
Key points
Privacy International has obtained previously unseen government documents that reveal British spy agency GCHQ collects social media information on potentially millions of people.
GCHQ collected and accesses this information by gaining access to private companies’ databases.
Letters obtained by Privacy International reveal that the body tasked with overseeing intelligence agencies’ activities (the Investigatory Powers Commissioner) was kept in the dark as UK intelligence…
Content type: Press release
In today’s latest hearing in our ongoing legal challenge against the collection of massive troves of our personal data by the UK intelligence agencies, shocking new evidence has emerged about GCHQ’s attempts to yet again avoid proper independent scrutiny for its deeply intrusive surveillance activities.
In a truly breath-taking exchange of letters between the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office (“IPCO”) and the Director of Legal Affairs at GCHQ, it has emerged that GCHQ have…
Content type: Long Read
On 8 September 2017, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal decided to refer questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) concerning the collection of bulk communications data (‘BCD’) by the Security Intelligence Agencies from mobile network operators.
The BCD regime was initially secret. In an earlier judgment, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that the regime was not compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights prior to its public avowal, but (subject to…
Content type: Long Read
European Court of Human Rights Intervention
On 15 September 2017, Privacy International filed an intervention to the European Court of Human Rights in Association Confraternelle de la Presse Judiciare and 11 Other Applications v. France. This case challenges various surveillance powers authorised under the French Intelligence Act of 24 July 2015 as incompatible with Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which respectively protect the right to privacy…
Content type: Advocacy
Privacy International welcomes this opportunity to engage in a dialogue over the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 2322 (2016), specifically as they related to intelligence sharing and mutual legal assistance mechanisms to access cross-border data.
Content type: News & Analysis
On a hot day in Nairobi, our researcher is speaking to an officer of Kenya’s National Intelligence Service (NIS). The afternoon is wearing on and the conversation has turned to the presidential elections, taking place in August this year. He has just finished describing the NIS’ highly secret surveillance powers and the disturbing ways in which these powers are deployed.
“It is what you might call ‘acceptable deaths,’” he states about the misuse of communications surveillance powers. “People…