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Content type: News & Analysis
We have been fighting for transparency and stronger regulation of the use of IMSI catchers by law enforcement in the UK since 2016. The UK police forces have been very secretive about the use of IMSI catchers – maintaining a strict “neither confirm nor deny” (NCND) policy. In our efforts to seek greater clarity we wrote to the UK body which monitors the use of covert investigatory powers, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office (IPCO), asking the Commissioner to revisit this…
Content type: News & Analysis
Imagine going to a peaceful protest and having to show your ID to the police before you can join it. Or having to fill out a form about why you are attending that particular protest.Sounds absurd, right? Surely we should all be free to protest, without the police knowing who we are?But high tech surveillance of protests is real, and it enables the police to identify, monitor and track protestors, indiscriminately and at scale.For example, your face is increasingly becoming your ID card with the…
Content type: Long Read
Tucked away in a discrete side street in Hungary’s capital, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL) has since 2006 operated as an official EU agency responsible for developing, implementing, and coordinating training for law enforcement officials from across EU and non-EU countries.
Providing training to some 29,000 officials in 2018 alone, it has seen its budget rocket from €5 million in 2006 to over €9.3 million in 2019, and offers courses in everything from…
Content type: Long Read
The European Union (EU) is the world’s largest donor of development aid, an instrumental supporter of democracies and peace around the world, and a powerful global force for reigning-in big tech and other exploitative industries.
But since the 2015 migration crisis and with populist anti-immigration parties in power across the Union, it has focused this immensely powerful influence abroad squarely on managing flows of migration: using its economic, diplomatic, and security might to…
Content type: News & Analysis
At a time where the mass surveillance of protests has been at the forefront, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights released a timely report on the impact of new technologies on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of assemblies, including peaceful protests.
The new report highlights the strong ties between protest and privacy and warns that “…the use of some such technologies to surveil or crack down on protesters can lead to human rights violations, including…
Content type: Case Study
Facial recognition technology (FRT) is fairly present in our daily lives, as an authentication method to unlock phones for example. Despite having useful applications, FRT can also be just another technology used by those in power to undermine our democracies and carry out mass surveillance. The biometric data collected by FRT can be as uniquely identifying as a fingerprint or DNA. The use of this technology by third parties, specially without your consent, violates your right to privacy.
The…
Content type: News & Analysis
IMSI catchers (or stingrays as they are known in the US) are one of the surveillance technologies that has come to the forefront again in the protests against police brutality and systemic racism that have been sparked by the murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020.
An International Mobile Subscriber Identity catcher – in short an “IMSI catcher” – is an intrusive piece of technology that can be used to locate and track all mobile phones that are switched on in a certain area. It does so by…
Content type: News & Analysis
Picture Credit: US AID
US President Trump has been cutting aid to Central America, including a surprise cut of approximately $500m in aid to the “Northern Triangle” countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, apparently as punishment for “doing absolutely nothing” to prevent emigration to the US.
What remains of the funds is largely and deliberately being repurposed for spending on the US’s own security interests: indeed, one area which his…
Content type: Long Read
image from portal gda (cc)
Many people are still confused by what is 5G and what it means for them. With cities like London, New York or San Francisco now plastered with ads, talks about national security, and the deployment of 5G protocols being treated like an arms race, what happens to our privacy and security?
5G is the next generation of mobile networks, which is meant to be an evolution of the current 4G protocols that mobile providers have deployed over the last decade, and there are…
Content type: Long Read
Join our campaign with Liberty and write to your local Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC). Your PCC works on your behalf to hold your local police force to account, so you can share your concerns about police spying tech with them.
You can download our new campaign pack (pdf link at the bottom of the page) to learn more about the police surveillance technology that might already be being used in your local area, and find out what you can do to get your police force to be more accountable to…
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
Protest movements throughout history have helped to shape the world we know today. From the suffragettes to the civil rights movement, and to contemporary movements such as those focusing on LGBTIQ+ rights, protests have become a vital way for many, who feel powerless otherwise, to have their voices heard.
But now, making the decision to attend a protest comes with consequences that you may very well be unaware of. This is because policing and security services, always hungry in their quest to…
Content type: News & Analysis
Planning and participating in peaceful protests against governments or non-state actors’ policies and practices requires the capacity of individuals to communicate confidentially without unlawful interference. From protests in support of LGBTI rights to protests against specific projects that undermine local communities’ wellbeing, these movements would not have been possible without the ability to exchange ideas and develop plans in private spaces.
Unlawful interference with…
Content type: Long Read
As calls for a ‘secure southern border’ are amplified in the US by politicians and pundits, Silicon Valley techies are coming out in force to proffer swanky digital solutions in the place of 30-foot steel slats or concrete blocks.
One such company is Anduril Industries, named after a sword in Lord of the Rings, which represents a symbol of hidden power.
Over recent months, Anduril Industries frontman Palmer Luckey has been making the PR rounds to promote his company’s version of a border wall…
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: News & Analysis
Privacy International welcomes the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Catt v the United Kingdom.The Court found that the UK violated the right to privacy (Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights) of Mr John Catt, a peace movement activist, who despite having never being convicted of any offence, had his name and other personal data included in a police database known as the “Extremism Database”. The Court found problematic "the variety of definitions of…
Content type: Long Read
Privacy International’s new report shows how countries with powerful security agencies are training, equipping, and directly financing foreign surveillance agencies. Driven by advances in technology, increased surveillance is both powered by and empowering rising authoritarianism globally, as well as attacks on democracy, peoples’ rights, and the rule of law.To ensure that surveillance powers used by governments are used to protect rather than endanger people, it is essential that the public,…
Content type: Long Read
Creative Commons Photo Credit: Source
UPDATE: 30 July 2019
Privacy International has identified the following:
Two RAB officers received approval to travel to the USA in April 2019 for training on “Location Based Social Network Monitoring System Software for RAB Intelligence Wing”
Three RAB officers received approval to travel to Russia in August 2017 to participate in user training of “Backpack IMSI Catcher (2G, 3G, 4G)” paid for by Annex SW Engineering, a…
Content type: Press release
Privacy International, represented by Liberty, is challenging court decision allowing police to ‘neither confirm nor deny’ they hold certain information on IMSI catchers
Privacy rights organisation has fought for almost two years for public disclosure of records on how UK police purchase and use mobile phone surveillance technology
Privacy International has today filed an appeal challenging police forces’ refusal to disclose information on their purchase and use of IMSI catchers.
IMSI…
Content type: News & Analysis
Create Commons Photo Credit: Source
Privacy International has achieved an important victory for government transparency and information access rights. This victory stems from a long-running battle with the government to obtain information about the UK police’s purchase and use of IMSI catchers. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) recently issued a series of decisions, which agree with Privacy International that police forces cannot rely on a position of “neither confirm nor deny” (NCND…
Content type: Press release
We found this image here.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) will no longer be able to operate in secret after human rights campaign organisations Liberty and Privacy International demanded it be subject to Freedom of Information laws.
The Government has now informed the organisations that it has started a process to designate the law enforcement policy-making body as a public authority subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) – meaning it will be open to public scrutiny.…
Content type: Long Read
How would you feel if you were fingerprinted by the police before you were allowed to take part in a peaceful public demonstration?
As tens of thousands of people attend massive public demonstrations across the UK today against US President Donald Trump in a ‘Carnival of Resistance’, it’s a question worth asking. Why? Because the police now deploy a range of highly sophisticated surveillance tools at public events which are just as if not more intrusive. And these technologies should be even…
Content type: Long Read
Privacy and data protection are currently being debated more intensively than ever before. In this interview, Frederike Kaltheuner from the civil rights organisation Privacy International explains why those terms have become so fundamentally important to us. The article was first published in the newly launched magazine ROM. The interview was conducted by ROM publisher Khesrau Behroz and writers Patrick Stegemann and Milosz Paul Rosinski.
Frederike Kaltheuner, you work for Privacy…
Content type: News & Analysis
In order to uphold the law and keep us safe, the police can seriously interfere with a range of fundamental human rights. And so transparency and public scrutiny of their actions are essential to protect against misconduct and abuse.
So why is the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) now permitted to operate in secret?
We all have the right to seek information from most public bodies – including the police – under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000. When the law was first…
Content type: Long Read
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Have you ever been to a peaceful protest, demo or march? Did you assume that the police would only be identifying 'troublemakers'? How would you feel if just by turning up at a peaceful protest, the police automatically identified you, without your consent or knowledge, and stored personal information about you (including photographs of your face) in a secret database?…
Content type: News & Analysis
This op-ed originally appeared in the New Statesman.
Imagine the police searching your home without good reason, without a warrant, without your knowledge. For good measure let’s also imagine that they take a full inventory of all of your possessions and store this in a secret database indefinitely.
A peculiar feature of modernity is that what we would find dystopian in the real world is banal in our virtual world. And the irony is that this can be a greater violation of our privacy and…
Content type: Long Read
Image: Eric Jones
The UK government last week hosted hundreds of surveillance companies as it continues to try and identify “technology-based solutions” able to reconcile the need for controls at the Irish border with the need to avoid them.
The annual showcase conference of 'Security and Policing' brings together some of the most advanced security equipment with government agencies from around the world. It is off limits to the public and media.
This year’s event came as EU and UK…
Content type: News & Analysis
Al Jazeera recently published an investigation into the shadowy trade of communications surveillance technologies. Their undercover reporter revealed four companies offering to illegally sell highly intrusive surveillance technologies to the governments of South Sudan and Iran, both of which are subject to extensive international sanctions. In the film, the four companies – two Italian, one Turkish and one Chinese – show themselves eager to employ workarounds, third parties, and shell…
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…