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Content type: Long Read
“Hey [enter AI assistant name here], can you book me a table at the nearest good tapas restaurant next week, and invite everyone from the book club?” Billions of dollars are invested in companies to deliver on this. While this is a dream that their marketing departments want to sell, this is a potential nightmare in the making.Major tech companies have all announced flavours of such assistants: Amazon’s Alexa+, Google’s Gemini inspired by Project Astra, Microsoft’s Copilot AI companion and…
Content type: Advocacy
In the wake of Privacy International’s (PI) campaign against the unfettered use of Facial Recognition Technology in the UK, MPs gave inadequate responses to concerns raised by members of the public about the roll-out of this pernicious mass-surveillance technology in public spaces. Their responses also sidestep calls on them to take action.The UK is sleepwalking towards the end of privacy in public. The spread of insidious Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) in public spaces across the country…
Content type: Long Read
The fourth edition of PI’s Guide to International Law and Surveillance provides the most hard-hitting past and recent results on international human rights law that reinforce the core human rights principles and standards on surveillance. We hope that it will continue helping researchers, activists, journalists, policymakers, and anyone else working on these issues.The new edition includes, among others, entries on (extra)territorial jurisdiction in surveillance, surveillance of public…
Content type: Advocacy
Privacy International (PI) welcomes the opportunity to provide input to the forthcoming report the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related tolerance to the 56th session of Human Rights Council which will examine and analyse the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and non-discrimination and racial equality, as well as other international human rights standards.AI applications are becoming a part of everyday life:…
Content type: Advocacy
Why the EU AI Act fails migration
The EU AI Act seeks to provide a regulatory framework for the development and use of the most ‘risky’ AI within the European Union. The legislation outlines prohibitions for ‘unacceptable’ uses of AI, and sets out a framework of technical, oversight and accountability requirements for ‘high-risk’ AI when deployed or placed on the EU market.
Whilst the AI Act takes positive steps in other areas, the legislation is weak and even enables dangerous systems in the…
Content type: Advocacy
Our submission focussed on the evolving impacts of (i) automated decision-making, (ii) the digitisation of social protection programmes, (iii) sensitive data-processing and (iv) assistive technologies in the experiences and rights of people with disabilities.We called on the OHCHR to:Examine the impact that growing digitisation and the use of new and emerging technologies across sectors has upon the rights of persons with disabilities;Urge states to ensure that the deployment of digital…
Content type: News & Analysis
What if we told you that every photo of you, your family, and your friends posted on your social media or even your blog could be copied and saved indefinitely in a database with billions of images of other people, by a company you've never heard of? And what if we told you that this mass surveillance database was pitched to law enforcement and private companies across the world?
This is more or less the business model and aspiration of Clearview AI, a company that only received worldwide…
Content type: News & Analysis
Last month, the World Health Organization published its guidance on Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence for Health. Privacy International was one of the organisations that was tasked with reviewing the report. We want to start by acknowledging that this report is a very thorough one that does not shy away from acknowledging the risks and limitations of the use of AI in healthcare. As it is often the case with guidance notes of this kind, its effectiveness will depend on the…
Content type: Examples
Many of the steps suggested in a draft programme for China-style mass surveillance in the US are being promoted and implemented as part of the government’s response to the pandemic, perhaps due to the overlap of membership between the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, the body that drafted the programme, and the advisory task forces charged with guiding the government’s plans to reopen the economy. The draft, obtained by EPIC in a FOIA request, is aimed at ensuring that…
Content type: Long Read
Over the last two decades we have seen an array of digital technologies being deployed in the context of border controls and immigration enforcement, with surveillance practices and data-driven immigration policies routinely leading to discriminatory treatment of people and undermining peoples’ dignity.And yet this is happening with little public scrutiny, often in a regulatory or legal void and without understanding and consideration to the impact on migrant communities at the border and…
Content type: News & Analysis
In mid-2019, MI5 admitted, during a case brought by Liberty, that personal data was being held in “ungoverned spaces”. Much about these ‘ungoverned spaces’, and how they would effectively be “governed” in the future, remained unclear. At the moment, they are understood to be a ‘technical environment’ where personal data of unknown numbers of individuals was being ‘handled’. The use of ‘technical environment’ suggests something more than simply a compilation of a few datasets or databases.
The…
Content type: Advocacy
During its 98th session, from 23 April to 10 May 2019, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) initiated the drafting process of general recommendation n° 36 on preventing and combatting racial profiling.
As part of this process, CERD invited stakeholders, including States, UN and regional human rights mechanisms, UN organisations or specialised agencies, National Human Rights Institutions, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), research…
Content type: News & Analysis
Profiling and Automated Decision Making: Is Artificial Intelligence Violating Your Right to Privacy?
Image source creative commons.
The below piece was originally posted on the UNRISD site here.
How AI is affecting our human rights
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is part of our daily lives. Its many applications inform almost all sectors of society: from the way we interact on social media, to the way traffic flows are managed in cities; from access to credit and to social services, to the functioning of our ever expanding number of devices connected to the internet.
AI is affecting our human…
Content type: News & Analysis
This piece originally appeared here.
Creative Commons Photo Credit: Source
Tech competition is being used to push a dangerous corporate agenda.
High-tech industries have become the new battlefield as the United States and China clash over tariffs and trade deficits. It’s a new truism that the two countries are locked in a race for dominance in artificial intelligence and that data could drive the outcome.
In this purported race for technological high ground, the argument often goes, China…
Content type: Report
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is part of our daily lives. This technology shapes how people access information, interact with devices, share personal information, and even understand foreign languages. It also transforms how individuals and groups can be tracked and identified, and dramatically alters what kinds of information can be gleaned about people from their data.
AI has the potential to revolutionise societies in positive ways. However, as with any scientific or technological…
Content type: Press release
Full report is available here
ARTICLE 19 and Privacy International’s report provides an overview of the impact of AI technologies on freedom of expression and privacy. It calls for further study and monitoring of how AI tools impact human rights.
Specifically, we call on states and companies to:
Ensure protection of international human rights standards. All AI tools must be subject to laws, regulations, and ethical codes which meet the threshold set by international standards.…