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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: 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: 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…
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: Advocacy
Este informe es presentado por Derechos Digitales, Ciudadano Inteligente, Fundación ProAcceso y Privacy International. Derechos Digitales es una organización no gubernamental de defensa, promoción y desarrollo de los derechos humanos en el entorno digital. Ciudadano Inteligente es una organización dedicada a fortalecer la democracia y reducir la desigualdad a través de la transparencia y la participación ciudadana. Fundación ProAcceso se dedica a la defensa del derecho de acceso a la…
Content type: Report
In December 2018, the National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders-Kenya published a report analysing the needs and concerns of human rights defenders (HRD) in relation to privacy, data protection and communications surveillance.
A summary of their findings is below. Access the full report on their website.
Content type: News & Analysis
This post was written by William Marks, a former volunteer at Privacy International.
The right to privacy is central to the protection of human dignity, and supports and reinforces other rights, such as the right to freedom of expression and association. Privacy International, supported by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, recently submitted a joint stakeholder report to the United Nations Human Rights Council regarding New Zealand’s protection of the right to…
Content type: Advocacy
This Universal Periodic Review stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International presented to raise concerns regarding the situation of the violation of the right to privacy in New Zealand as part of the 32nd session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group.
Content type: News & Analysis
Our intervention comes on the back of mounting evidence that the South African state’s surveillance powers have been abused, and so-called “checks & balances” in RICA have failed to protect citizens’ constitutional right to privacy.
Among our core arguments are:
That people have a right to be notified when their communications have been intercepted so that they can take action when they believe their privacy has been unlawfully breached. Currently RICA prevents such notification, unlike…
Content type: Advocacy
This report is presented by Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales (R3D) and Privacy International (PI). La Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales (R3D) is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation located in Mexico, dedicated to the defence of human rights in the digital environment. Privacy International (PI) is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation located in London, focused on the defence, promotion and protection of the right to privacy around the world.
PI and R3D wish to…
Content type: Examples
In 2013, Edward Snowden, working under contract to the US National Security Agency for the consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton, copied and leaked thousands of classified documents that revealed the inner workings of dozens of previously unknown surveillance programs. One of these was PRISM, launched in 2007, which let NSA use direct access to the systems of numerous giant US technology companies to carry out targeted surveillance of the companies' non-US users and Americans with foreign contacts by…
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: Advocacy
Este informe es presentado por la Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales (R3D) y Privacy International (PI). La Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales (R3D) es una organización no gubernamental, sin fnes de lucro, ubicada en México, dedicada a la defensa de los derechos humanos en el entorno digital. Privacy International (PI) es una organización no gubernamental sin fnes de lucro ubicada en Londres enfocada en la defensa, promoción y protección del derecho a la privacidad alrededor del…
Content type: Advocacy
This Universal Periodic Review (“UPR”) stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International and Paradigm Initiative.
Together Privacy International and Paradigm Initiative wish to bring their concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to privacy in Nigeria before the Human Rights Council for consideration in Nigeria’s upcoming review at the 31st session of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review.
Content type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI) and the Jordan Open Source Association (JOSA).
Privacy International and the Jordan Open Source Association wish to bring concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to privacy for consideration in Jordan’s upcoming review at the 31st session of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review.
Content type: News & Analysis
En el 2011 se liquidó el DAS. Las violaciones, excesos y abusos de la inteligencia estatal que comenzaban por la intimidad y terminaban con la vida de los ciudadanos habían producido condenas judiciales a varios exdirectores: claro indicador de que se necesitaba un cambio. Siete años ha tenido el Estado colombiano para ordenar la casa y esta semana someterá sus récords de derechos humanos al examen de los miembros de Naciones Unidas. La evaluación analizará, entre otros…
Content type: News & Analysis
Los frecuentes escándalos sobre el abuso de la vigilancia estatal en actividades de inteligencia, la exagerada obligación legal que tienen las empresas de telefonía de retener los datos de las comunicaciones de sus usuarios por cinco años o la manera como se diluye el concepto de privacidad en el Código de Policía serán parte del examen que se haga en el seno de la ONU sobre la forma como Colombia cumple sus compromisos de derechos humanos.
Dirigido por los Estados y con el auspicio del…
Content type: News & Analysis
In the lead-up to the 30th session of the Universal Periodic Review which took place on 10 May 2018, Fundación Karisma, a partner organisation in the Privacy International Network, joined a coalition of civil society groups in Colombia to raise more awareness about the country's human rights record.
As part of the joint effort, the coalition produced factsheets on various human rights in the Colombian context, including the right to privacy. It is available in both English and Spanish.
Content type: Examples
A new examination of documents detailing the US National Security Agency's SKYNET programme shows that SKYNET carries out mass surveillance of Pakistan's mobile phone network and then uses a machine learning algorithm to score each of its 55 million users to rate their likelihood of being a terrorist. The documents were released as part of the Edward Snowden cache. The data scientist Patrick Ball, director of research at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, which produces scientifically…
Content type: Advocacy
A new Privacy International report based on an international collaborative investigation carried out by 40 NGOs in 42 countries has found alarming weaknesses in the oversight arrangements that are supposed to govern the sharing of intelligence between state intelligence agencies, including in the UK. Privacy International urges governments to enact urgent reforms and improve public understanding about the scope of intelligence sharing and the safeguards and oversight currently in place.