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Content type: News & Analysis
Sometimes it takes an unexpected stranger to remind you what you have, and what you are at risk of losing. Roman Zakharov, a Russian publisher who challenged Russia’s surveillance legislation, is that stranger for many Brits and Europeans. The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights judgement on Friday 4 December 2015 was remarkable, not because it tore up the rule book on the jurisprudence surrounding state surveillance in the Council of Europe, but because it followed…
Content type: News & Analysis
Internet Connection Records are a new form of communications data created by the Investigatory Powers Bill at Parts 3 and 4. They constitute an unlawful interference with privacy with the ability to provide a highly detailed record of the activities of individuals, profiling their internet habits.
Clause 62 of the Investigatory Powers Bill (“IP Bill”) permits a wide range of public authorities to collect Internet Connection Records, however throughout debates on this highly controversial new…
Content type: News & Analysis
This guest post was written by Nighat Dad and Adnan Chaudhry of Digital Rights Foundation.
It is the role of the state to protect its citizens from threats to their life and liberty. But in protecting its citizens, the state’s own aims cannot be counterproductive and erode the security found in rights like privacy and freedom of expression that are vital to a democratic system.
However, it has too often been the case that governments will pursue and enact legislation that provides more…
Content type: Long Read
Written by Eva Blum-Dumontet
A recent case of lèse-majesté in Thailand (speaking ill of the monarchy) is a worrying example of how Western companies do not just work with governments that fall short of international human rights standards, but can actually facilitate abuses of human rights.
Our investigation on the trial of Katha Pachachirayapong — accused of spreading rumours on the ill-health of the King Bhumibol Adulyadej, thereby causing sharp falls in the Thai stock market — reveal the…
Content type: News & Analysis
The UK Government introduced a draft surveillance bill on Wednesday – the innocuously named 'Investigatory Powers Bill'. Trumpeted as 'world leading' by the Home Secretary, the only sense in which this is true is that other Governments around the world will now also seek a mandate for mass surveillance and hacking.
Until recently, the idea that a Government agent could hack a mobile phone and turn on its camera and microphone to bug a conversation in a room was the realm of science fiction, or…
Content type: News & Analysis
On legal reform
"RIPA, obscure since its inception, has been patched up so many times as to make it incomprehensible to all but a tiny band of initiates. A multitude of alternative powers, some of them without statutory safeguards, confuse the picture further. This state of affairs is undemocratic, unnecessary and – in the long run – intolerable." [E.S. 35]
This report is confirmation of the pressing need for wholesale reform of Britain's surveillance laws. Mr Anderson is…
Content type: News & Analysis
With powers to snoop on our communications that are unprecedented anywhere in the world, it is essential the Investigatory Powers Bill doesn't let politicians decide who is spied on.
The bill, if it is passed, aims to give the police and intelligence agencies sweeping powers to scoop up our emails, phone calls and text messages; and access details about when, where and with whom we communicate; and even hack into our computers and smartphones. At Privacy International, we have many concerns…
Content type: News & Analysis
This is a guest piece. It does not necessarily reflect the views or position of Privacy International.
In 1997, plans for a Civil Identification Registry (RIC) were signed into law in Brazil, promising to unify the 27 regional identification registries into a centralized federal one by 2020. The law, which was only enacted in 2010, continues to face obstacles to its implementation, but in 2014 there was a renewed wave of support for the project from the Ministry of Justice…
Content type: News & Analysis
Despite Wednesday's publication of the Investigatory Powers Bill being trailed as world leading legislation that would balance security and privacy, what the Government is actually seeking is a mandate for mass surveillance. This is a new Snoopers' Charter and we must oppose many of its most virulent elements.
The true debate on surveillance can now begin. After years of downplaying, obscuring, and denying the Snowden revelations, the Government has finally joined the conversation about the…
Content type: News & Analysis
According to Snowden documents analysed by Privacy International, the Australian Signals Directorate had access to and used PRISM, a secret US National Security Agency program which provides access to user data held by Google, Facebook and Microsoft.
This is the third spy agency of the 'Five Eyes' alliance confirmed to have had secret access to Silicon Valley company data - an alliance whose rules and policies remain classified. Earlier this year, a British court ruled that GCHQ access to…
Content type: News & Analysis
Privacy is a human right, and needs very clear legal protections. 'Safe Harbor' was clear as mud and placed privacy rights globally at risk.
Today's European Court of Justice decision should be no surprise for industry or governments. For over fifteen years the U.S. Government has resisted implementing basic and effective privacy law and created absurd stopgap measures because U.S. Congress is incapable of acting upon what consumers and citizens have long asked for. The fact over 100 countries…
Content type: News & Analysis
Today the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that mass surveillance is in violation of the right to privacy and that a legal system that provides no legal redress against interference with someone's privacy falls short of EU human rights standards.
The Court was seized following a complaint initiated by Mr Schrems to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner about the transfer of his Facebook data from Ireland to the US under the now defunct “…
Content type: News & Analysis
Today Privacy International together with other international human rights organisations call on the French parliament [PDF] to reject a bill on international surveillance, which, as it is currently worded, fails to protect and respect the right to privacy of individuals worldwide.
In June this year, the French parliament passed a law regulating the work of the intelligence services that will greatly undermine the privacy of French residents. Soon after, the French…
Content type: News & Analysis
While two of the Vice journalists who were recently arrested in Turkey and charged with terror offenses have now been released, this remain a deeply concerning incident.* It is the latest episode in what is a pincer movement against our right to protect our data.
Two British journalists and their Turkey-based Iraqi translator working for VICE News were arrested last Thursday and charged with "engaging in terrorist activity". According to Turkish authorities, one member of the group had an…
Content type: News & Analysis
Over a dozen international companies are supplying powerful communications surveillance technology in Colombia, according to a Privacy International investigation released today featuring original documentation. Over the past few decades, companies primarily from Israel, the US, and the UK have worked with Colombian partners to expand the Government's surveillance capacities. This is despite evidence that the Government is undertaking unlawful surveillance of Colombians.
The…
Content type: News & Analysis
“We always assume we are being watched. It is part of our understanding,” explained Father Alberto. The clergyman knows what it's like to live under surveillance. Father Alberto is Executive Secretary of the Inter-ecclesiastical Commission for Justice and Peace in Colombia, which supports displaced and conflict-affected communities in their struggle for justice. The CIJP also works in the restive Urabá region, where they document and litigate on the links between neo-paramilitary groups,…
Content type: Press release
The release of a new report by Privacy International exposes Colombia's intelligence agencies' previously unknown history of developing communications surveillance capabilities outside of lawful authority.
The report “Shadow State: Surveillance law and order in Colombia” reveals, via previously unreleased documents, the Colombian police agencies' and intelligence services' long history developing surveillance systems. Rather than building a well-regulated system of surveillance after Colombia…
Content type: News & Analysis
Every government seems to want to spy in Pakistan. The US' National Security Agency (NSA) tapped the fibre optic cables landing in Karachi, among others, and used 55 million phone records harvested from Pakistani telecommunications providers for an analysis exercise. The United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had a store of SIM keys from Mobilink and Telenor networks, two of the country's biggest providers.
But the Pakistani government, specifically the…
Content type: News & Analysis
On July 6th, the company Hacking Team was hacked: over 400GB of administrative documents, source code and emails are now available for download.
Documents from the hack confirm once again the claims made in our report Their Eyes on Me, the Moroccan intelligence services made use of Hacking Team's spyware 'Remote Control System' to target those whom they perceive as their opponents. The documents show the two intelligence agencies in the country have been renewing their contracts and…
Content type: News & Analysis
Here are eight things we have learned from this week's hack of some 400GB of internal company material and correspondence from Italian surveillance company Hacking Team.
The Citizen Lab was right
The Citizen Lab, who in 2014 identified some 21 countries that are potential customers of Hacking Team, were right about all of them. A 2015 report stated that there was likely to be more. In fact, at least 45 countries are purchasers of Hacking Team's…
Content type: Press release
A 400 gigabyte trove of internal documents belonging to surveillance company Hacking Team has been released online. Hacking team sells intrusive hacking tools that have allegedly been used by some of the most repressive regimes in the world.
The documents reportedly confirm Hacking Team has customers in 35 countries, including some that routinely abuse human rights. These documents seemingly validate research conducted by Citizen Lab…
Content type: Press release
The UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) today notified the ten NGO claimants in a legal challenge against GCHQ mass surveillance practices that the Tribunal had mistakenly omitted information about unlawful GCHQ actives in their judgment from ten days ago . In an email to the claimants, including Privacy International, the Court admitted that in its 22nd June 2015 judgment it wrongly failed to declare that Amnesty International had been subject to unlawful surveillance…
Content type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI). PI is a human rights organisation that works to advance and promote the right to privacy and fight surveillance around the world. PI wishes to bring concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to privacy in Rwanda before the Human Rights Committee for consideration in Rwanda's upcoming review.
Content type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI). PI is a human rights organisation that works to advance and promote the right to privacy and fight surveillance around the world. PI wishes to bring concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to privacy in France before the Human Rights Committee for consideration in France’s upcoming review.
Content type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI) and the Right2Know Campaing. PI is a human rights organisation that works to advance and promote the right to privacy and fight surveillance around the world. PI wishes to bring concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to privacy in South Africa before the Human Rights Committee for consideration in South Africa's upcoming review.
Content type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI). PI is a human rights organisation that works to advance and promote the right to privacy and fight surveillance around the world. PI wishes to bring concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to privacy in Estonia before the Human Rights Council for consideration in Estonia's upcoming Universal Periodic Review.
Content type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI) and TEDIC. PI is a human rights organisation that works to advance and promote the right to privacy and fight surveillance around the world. PI wishes to bring concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to privacy in Paraguay before the Human Rights Council for consideration in Paraguay's upcoming Universal Periodic Review.
Content type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI). PI is a human rights organisation that works to advance and promote the right to privacy and fight surveillance around the world. PI wishes to bring concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to privacy in Singapore before the Human Rights Council for consideration in Singapore's upcoming Universal Periodic Review.
Content type: Press release
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) today revealed that the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) spied on two international human rights organisations, failed to follow ITS own secret procedures and acted unlawfully.
The targeted NGOs are the South African Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). Both are leading civil liberties organisations and co-claimants alongside Privacy International, Liberty,…