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Content type: Case Study
On 3 December 2015, four masked men in plainclothes arrested Isnina Musa Sheikh in broad daylight (at around 1 p.m.) as she served customers at her food kiosk in Mandera town, in the North East of Kenya, Human Rights Watch reported. The men didn’t identify themselves but they were carrying pistols and M16 assault rifles, commonly used by Kenyan defence forces and the cars that took her away had their insignia on the doors. Isnina’s body was discovered three days later in a shallow grave about…
Content type: Case Study
The prohibition against torture is absolute. There are no exceptional circumstances whatsoever which can be used to justify torture.
And yet, torture is still being carried out by state officials around the world, driven by states’ ability to surveil dissidents, and intercept their communications.
In 2007, French technology firm Amesys (a subsidiary of Bull) supplied sophisticated communications surveillance systems to the Libyan intelligence services. The systems allegedly permitted the…
Content type: Case Study
In the Xingjiang region of Western China, surveillance is being used to facilitate the government’s persecution of 8.6million Uighur Muslims.
Nurjamal Atawula, a Uighur woman, described how, in early 2016, police began regularly searching her home and calling her husband into the police station, as a result of his WeChat activity.
WeChat is a Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app. As of 2013, it was being used by around 1million Uighurs, but in 2014 WeChat was…
Content type: Case Study
The way digital technologies are deployed has radically influenced the distribution of power in our societies. Digital information can be created, transmitted, stored and distributed far more easily and cheaply than ever before, on a scale that was previously unimaginable. This information is power in the hands of those that know how to use it. Governments and companies alike have been racing to occupy as much space as possible, increasing their surveillance and their knowledge about each and…
Content type: News & Analysis
This creates a restraint on all people who merely seek to do as people everywhere do: to communicate freely.
This is a particularly worrying development as it builds an unreliable, pervasive, and unnecessary technology on top of an unnecessary and exclusionary SIM card registration policy. Forcing people to register to use communication technology eradicates the potential for anonymity of communications, enables pervasive tracking and communications surveillance.
Building facial recognition…
Content type: Advocacy
On November 1, 2019, we submitted evidence to an inquiry carried out by the Scottish Parliament into the use of Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) for policing purposes.
In our submissions, we noted that the rapid advances in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the deployment of new technologies that seek to analyse, identify, profile and predict, by police, have and will continue to have a seismic impact on the way society is policed.
The implications come not…
Content type: News & Analysis
Photo by Francesco Bellina
The wars on terror and migration have seen international funders sponsoring numerous border control missions across the Sahel region of Africa. Many of these rely on funds supposed to be reserved for development aid and lack vital transparency safeguards. In the first of a series, freelance journalist Giacomo Zandonini sets the scene from Niger.
Surrounded by a straw-yellow stretch of sand, the immense base of the border control mobile company of Maradi, in southern…
Content type: News & Analysis
Today, the High Court of South Africa in Pretoria in a historic decision declared that bulk interception by the South African National Communications Centre is unlawful and invalid.
The judgment is a powerful rejection of years of secret and unchecked surveillance by South African authorities against millions of people - irrespective of whether they reside in South Africa.
The case was brought by two applicants, the amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism and journalist Stephen…
Content type: News & Analysis
Photo: The European Union
On 2 September 2019, Privacy International, together with 60 other organisations, signed an open letter to the European Parliament to express our deep concern about upcoming EU policy proposals which undermine the EU’s founding values of human rights, peace and disarmament.
Since 2017, the EU has diverted funds towards security research and security capacity-building in countries around the world. The proposal for the EU's next budget (2021-2027) will…
Content type: Report
“...a mobile device is now a huge repository of sensitive data, which could provide a wealth of information about its owner. This has in turn led to the evolution of mobile device forensics, a branch of digital forensics, which deals with retrieving data from a mobile device.”
The situation in Scotland regarding the use of mobile phone extraction has come a long way since the secret trials were exposed. The inquiry by the Justice Sub-Committee, commenced on 10 May 2018, has brought much…
Content type: Long Read
It is common ground that bulk collection of content would be a deprivation of the right to privacy. That is an inexcusable or unjustifiable step too far. Repeatedly the Government whether in litigation or legislating, has emphasised that they are not taking content in bulk. Content is the forbidden ground.
This has resulted in the Government seeking to explain, for example, what parts of an email would constitute content and meta data. Within the Investigatory Powers Act it has led to the…
Content type: Long Read
Six years after NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents providing details about how states' mass surveillance programmes function, two states – the UK and South Africa – publicly admit using bulk interception capabilities.Both governments have been conducting bulk interception of internet traffic by tapping undersea fibre optic cables landing in the UK and South Africa respectively in secret for years.Both admissions came during and as a result of legal proceedings brought by Privacy…
Content type: Long Read
Imagine that every time you want to attend a march, religious event, political meeting, protest, or public rally, you must share deeply personal information with police and intelligence agencies, even when they have no reason to suspect you of wrongdoing.
First, you need to go to the police to register; have your photo taken for a biometric database; share the contacts of your family, friends, and colleagues; disclose your finances, health records, lifestyle choices, relationship status, and…
Content type: News & Analysis
According to the International Organization for Migration, an estimated 258 million people are international migrants – that is, someone who changes their country of usual residence, That’s one in every 30 people on earth.
These unprecedented movements levels show no sign of slowing down. It is predicted that by 2050, there will be 450 million migrants across the world.
Nowadays, it is politically acceptable to demonise migrants, and countless leaders have spewed divisive and xenophobic…
Content type: Long Read
Cellebrite, a surveillance firm marketing itself as the “global leader in digital intelligence”, is marketing its digital extraction devices at a new target: authorities interrogating people seeking asylum.
Israel-based Cellebrite, a subsidiary of Japan’s Sun Corporation, markets forensic tools which empower authorities to bypass passwords on digital devices, allowing them to download, analyse, and visualise data.
Its products are in wide use across the world: a 2019 marketing…
Content type: Long Read
The Privacy International Network is celebrating Data Privacy Week, where we’ll be talking about how trends in surveillance and data exploitation are increasingly affecting our right to privacy. Join the conversation on Twitter using #dataprivacyweek.
In the era of smart cities, the gap between the internet and the so-called physical world is closing. Gone are the days, when the internet was limited to your activities behind a desktop screen, when nobody knew you were a dog.
Today, the…
Content type: Long Read
The Privacy International Network is celebrating Data Privacy Week, where we’ll be talking about how trends in surveillance and data exploitation are increasingly affecting our right to privacy. Join the conversation on Twitter using #dataprivacyweek.
It is often communities who are already the most marginalised who are at risk because of the privacy invasions of data-intensive systems. Across the globe, we see the dangers of identity systems; the harms of online violence against women and the…
Content type: News & Analysis
It was only last year that women in Saudi Arabia finally gained the right to vote. However, it seems a sad case of ‘one step forward, two steps back’, as this year it was discovered that all Saudi women are being electronically tracked by their male ‘guardians’, who are automatically sent text messages when their female ‘dependants’ attempt to cross the border. For women seeking to escape abusive relationships, or simply the severe generalised oppression of women that operates…
Content type: News & Analysis
A full analysis of the UK Information Commissioner's "Anonymisation code of practice: managing data protection risk" will take time and working knowledge of how the code is used in practice.
At the launch, the ICO signalled that while they believed the code was now up to scratch, they were open to additions and clarifications given that it is the first document of its kind in the world. We applaud them for this; the code is likely to be copied internationally, so it is particularly…
Content type: Report
Privacy has truly become an issue of global resonance. A quick glance at policy agendas in countries around the world shows that privacy and surveillance issues are increasingly important. The challenge, however, is improving the ability of governments and policy stakeholders to engage in a policy debate that is informed about the dangers of surveillance and the importance of protecting privacy. This is the primary objective of our Privacy in the Developing World programme.
In this report, we…
Content type: News & Analysis
Twelve years after the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) was passed by the UK Parliament, permitting the interception of communications without a judicial warrant and allowing the police to self-authorise access to communications metadata, some parts of this dangerous law are finally being properly scrutinised. This isn't an intentional review, but rather a by-product of a joint parliamentary committee's interrogation of the draft Communications Data Bill, the Home Office's…
Content type: News & Analysis
Today we launch the public consultation process for the International Principles on Communications Surveillance and Human Rights. From now until January 3rd, we are inviting comments and suggestions on the draft principles.
The rationale behind these principles is to provide civil society, industry and government with a framework against which to evaluate whether current or proposed surveillance laws and practices are consistent with human rights. Now more than ever, we need greater…
Content type: News & Analysis
There have been two rounds of meetings in 2012 of the OECD Committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy (ICCP) and some of its working parties – in May and October 2012, with further meeting of two working parties in December. A ‘foresight forum’ on the ‘big data’ theme was held on 22 October. Civil society interest in the ICCP work programme is formalised through the Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council (CSISAC).
The Working Party on Information Security…
Content type: News & Analysis
One of the first things that strikes you about the chaotic East African metropolises of Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe is the blanket of adverts for mobile phone companies that covers them, from the walls of the immigration hall at Harare airport, to the rickety shacks that line the dusty streets of Kampala. Where official signage is unavailable, DIY versions are painted onto the roofs and walls of houses and small businesses. Stores selling mobile phones are rarely more than a few short steps away…
Content type: News & Analysis
Privacy International is proud to announce our new project, Eyes Wide Open, which aims to pry open the Five Eyes arrangement and bring it under the rule of law. Read our Special Report "Eyes Wide Open" and learn more about the project below.
For almost 70 years, a secret post-war alliance of five English-speaking countries has been building a global surveillance infrastructure to “master the internet” and spy on the worlds communications. This arrangement binds together the US, UK, Canada,…
Content type: News & Analysis
Communications surveillance is one of the most significant threats to personal privacy posed by the state. This is why many statements of fundamental rights across the world give special regard to the privacy of communications. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states in Article 12:
No one should be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks on his honour or reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of…
Content type: News & Analysis
Let's be clear: the Open Data movement is not about the pursuit of complete and unconditional openness. We know that it would be unwise to publish details of police patrol patterns, or the combination to the safe containing the crown jewels. We believe that fundamental reference data like ordnance survey maps, transport timetables, and company information should be freely available to all - information about objects, rather than information about people. Internationally, slightly different…
Content type: News & Analysis
Last week the Rwandan government tightened its grip on citizens when the parliament's lower house adopted legislation that sanctions the widespread monitoring of email and telephone communications.1 The bill is now awaiting Senate approval.
The law, an amendment to the 2008 Law Relating to the Interception of Communications,2 will empower the police, army and intelligence services to listen to and read private communications, both online and offline, in order to protect "public…
Content type: News & Analysis
Governments have no automatic right of access to our communications. This will sound highly controversial to some, even downright radical. But the demands of national security and crime prevention do not, in fact, immediately trump every other right and responsibility in the complex relationship between citizen and state.
The recent Skype argument is a great example. Skype has always prided itself on being a secure method of communication. Businesses, government agencies, human…
Content type: Report
This report was submitted to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Under the current version of the draft Communications Data Bill, records of every person or entity with whom any given individual has communicated electronically would be collected continuously and stored for one year. These records would include the time of the communication and the location from which it originated.
The Communications Data Bill raises a number of concerns with regards to the right to privacy under Article 8…