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Content type: News & Analysis
Update: Based on the complaint, on 30 November 2021 the Ombudsman opened an inquiry into whether the European Commission failed to take into account human rights concerns or carry out human rights impact assessments before providing support to African countries to develop surveillance capabilities.
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Privacy International (PI) together with a coalition of human rights groups have today called on the European Ombudsman, the EU’s oversight body, to investigate evidence that the block is…
Content type: News & Analysis
A new industry is offering border agencies around the world access to advanced space-based surveillance capabilities once reserved for the most advanced intelligence agencies. Using satellites able to track signals from satellite phones and other emitters, these companies are then selling access to the data obtained to anyone willing to pay, including UK and EU border agencies.
While such surveillance can and is being used to save lives, it can also be used for illegal ‘pull backs’ in…
Content type: Explainer
An array of digital technologies are being deployed in the context of border enforcement. Satellite and aerial surveillance are part of the surveillance toolkit and yet, they are also used by organisations seeking to hold government actions to account and improve efficacy of their own work. To effectively critique state use and delve into potential benefits of satellite and aerial surveillance, we must first understand it.
In this explainer we dig into a technology which many are aware of for…
Content type: News & Analysis
Around the world, we see migration authorities use technology to analyse the devices of asylum seekers. The UK via the Policing Bill includes immigration officers amongst those who can exercise powers to extract information from electronic devices. There are two overarching reasons why this is problematic:
The sole provision in the Policing Bill to extract information rests on voluntary provision and agreement, which fails to account for the power imbalance between individual and state. This…
Content type: News & Analysis
To fully understand when, how and why asylum seekers are monitored via the Aspen Card, we need more information.
In February this year we launched our ‘Stop Spying on Asylum Seekers’ campaign, demanding that the UK Home Office ceases surveillance of asylum seekers through the payments they make on their ‘Aspen Card’ debit payment card.
Over 200 people wrote to the Home Office. We are grateful for the pressure that every one of you have applied to the Home Office.
You can read our explainer…
Content type: News & Analysis
The Aspen Card - the debit payment card given to asylum seekers that PI has previously exposed as a de facto surveillance tool - will be outsourced to a new company. The contract with Sodexo has come to an end and the company Prepaid Financial Services will be taking over.
Our campaign for transparency in relation to the Aspen Card and how it monitors asylum seekers continues. Not only do we demand clarity from the Home Office [read more here], we believe the new provider, Prepaid Financial…
Content type: Examples
Health officials in Lebanon had indicated that all residents in Lebanon there would be equal access to the Covid-19 vaccine programme, regardless of nationality. However data is indicating a higher number of Syrian and Palestinian refugees either not registering or receiving the vaccine, and so a low percentage of these groups are being vaccinated compared to rates of Lebanese nationals.
Human Rights Watch reported that this low numbers signalled “a lack of awareness around the process and a…
Content type: Explainer
The UK Home Office provides basic subsistence support to people who are in the process of applying for asylum, as well as to those whose applications have been refused and are appealing their cases, in the form of an ‘Aspen Card’ - basically it’s a debit payment card, which can be used in any shop that accepts VISA debit payments. At the time of writing the programme is managed by corporate giant corporate giant Sodexo, but the administration of the payment system is soon going to go to a new…
Content type: News & Analysis
Earlier this week, the UK Government announced that no immigration status checks will be carried out for migrants trying to register with their GP and get vaccinated. But temporary offers of safety are not enough to undo the decades of harm caused by policies that have embedded immigration controls into public services.
Years of charging migrants for healthcare and sharing patient data with the Home Office has eroded trust between migrant communities and the NHS. As a result, they might not…
Content type: Report
Privacy International has released a report summarising the result of its research into the databases and surveillance tools used by authorities across the UK’s borders, immigration, and citizenship system.
The report uses procurement, contractual, and other open-source data and aims to inform the work of civil society organisations and increase understanding of a vast yet highly opaque system upon which millions of people rely.
It also describes and maps…
Content type: Long Read
Update 28 June 2018
Last week Privacy International wrote to Thomson Reuters Corporation asking the company to commit to ensuring the vast amounts of data they provide to US immigration agencies isn’t used to identify families for indefinite detention or separation, or for other human rights abuses.
Thomson Reuters has unfortunately ignored our specific questions and made no such commitment.
Instead, the CEO Thomson Reuters Special Services (TRSS) a subsidiary, makes clear that instead of…