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Content type: Long Read
IntroductionHarnessing new digital technology to improve people’s health is now commonplace across the world. Countries and international organisations alike are devising digital health strategies and looking to emerging technology to help solve tricky problems within healthcare. At the same time, more and more start-ups and established tech companies are bringing out new, and at times innovative, digital tools aimed at health and wellbeing.
Content type: Advocacy
In August 2023, the UK Westminster Women and Equalities Committee launched a call for evidence into a short inquiry on women’s reproductive health.We submitted a response highlighting the increasing management of women’s reproductive healthcare through digital health initiatives. We raised concerns that these technologies can be privacy-invasive and result in highly sensitive personal information being shared in unexpected and potentially dangerous ways. We encouraged the Committee to ensure…
Content type: Long Read
IntroductionData about our health reveals some of the most sensitive, intimate - and potentially embarrassing - information about who we are. Confidentiality is, and has always been, at the very heart of medical ethics. People need to be able to trust their doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers so that they are not afraid to tell them something important about their health for fear of shame, judgement or social exclusion.It’s no surprise then that data protection regimes around…
Content type: Long Read
Introduction
The 28th of September marks International Safe Abortion Day. It remains a day necessary to mobilise and raise awareness of the continued struggles women and girls face when accessing reproductive healthcare, including access to safe abortion. Across the world, abortion continues to be criminalised, restricted and in some places under attack. All of which constitute severe obstacles for women and girls to fully exercise their human rights, particularly their right to privacy, which…
Content type: Advocacy
Privacy International contributed to the UNSR's report by submitting information on the work we have done as well as our Network of partners as we’ve monitored and responded to developments associated with the use of data and technology in the health care sector by governments and companies.
Content type: Advocacy
PI welcomes the opportunity to engage once again with the mandate by submitting comments, evidence, and recommendations to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Ms. Tlaleng Mofokeng. We hope that our input will contribute to the forthcoming report, “Digital innovation, technologies and the right to health”.
Technology has contributed significantly to the planning and delivery of health information, services and care. We have seen the use of data and technology across the healthcare…
Content type: News & Analysis
The relationship between privacy and access to abortion care
In 1973, in the state of Texas, it was a criminal offence to “procure or attempt” an abortion except if the purpose was “saving the life of the mother.” This law was enacted in 1854 by the Texas state legislature, and was part of a wave of provisions criminalising access to abortion care that was gaining ground across the U.S in the mid-1800s. It is worth highlighting that these laws were being passed at a time when women in the U.S…
Content type: Long Read
In the wake of the recent news of the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the ruling of Roe v Wade in its ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, headlines have been dominated by conversations around privacy and fears of how the criminalisation of abortion care and surveillance by law enforcement will play out in a tech driven world.
This discussion is increasingly important as governments move towards digitising their healthcare systems and as more individuals choose to…
Content type: Long Read
This piece is a part of a collection of research that demonstrates how data-intensive systems that are built to deliver reproductive and maternal healthcare are not adequately prioritising equality and privacy.
What are they?
Short Message Services (SMS) are being used in mobile health (MHealth) initiatives which aim to deliver crucial information to expecting and new mothers. These initiatives are being implemented in developing countries experiencing a large percentage of maternal and…
Content type: Long Read
For over 20 years with the start of the first use of ICTs in the 1990s, we have seen a digital revolution in the health sector. The Covid-19 pandemic significantly accelerated the digitalisation of the health sector, and it illustrates how fast this uptake can be and what opportunities can emerge; but also, importantly, the risks that it involves.
As we've said many times before, whilst technologies can be part of the solution to tackle some socio-economic and political challenges facing our…
Content type: Long Read
Image found here.
Founded in 1959, Bounty UK Limited markets itself as an information service for pregnant women and new mothers. Prior to the pandemic, it was best known for distributing “Bounty packs” of free samples of baby products to pregnant women at midwife appointments, to new mothers on maternity wards in the UK and through its digital presence via its website and app. Bounty representatives also sold new born photography packages to new mothers at the hospital bedside. Bounty entered…
Content type: Long Read
In 2019, we exposed the practices of five menstruation apps that were sharing your most intimate data with Facebook and other third parties. We were pleased to see that upon the publication of our research some of them decided to change their practices. But we always knew the road to effective openness, transparency, informed consent and data minimisation would be a long one when it comes to apps, which for the most part make profit from our menstrual cycle and even sometimes one’s desire to…
Content type: News & Analysis
This week International Health Day was marked amidst a global pandemic which has impacted every region in the world. And it gives us a chance to reflect on how tech companies, governments, and international agencies are responding to Covid-19 through the use of data and tech.
All of them have been announcing measures to help contain or respond to the spread of the virus; but too many allow for unprecedented levels of data exploitation with unclear benefits, and raising so many red flags…
Content type: Long Read
This piece was written by Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon, who are policy officers at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in India. The piece was originally published on the website Economic Policy Weekly India here.
In order to bring out certain conceptual and procedural problems with health monitoring in the Indian context, this article posits health monitoring as surveillance and not merely as a “data problem.” Casting a critical feminist lens, the historicity of surveillance practices…
Content type: News & Analysis
Photo by Ray Witlin / World Bank CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
This article has been written by Ambika Tandon, Policy Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society, in collaboration with Privacy International.
On October 17th 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur (UNSR) on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Philip Alston, released his thematic report on digital technology, social protection and human rights. Understanding the impact of technology on the provision of social protection – and, by extent, its…
Content type: Long Read
Photo by David Werbrouck on Unsplash
This is an ongoing series about the ways in which those searching for abortion information and procedures are being traced and tracked online. This work is part of a broader programme of work aimed at safeguarding the dignity of people by challenging current power dynamics, and redefining our relationship with governments, companies, and within our own communities. As an enabling right, privacy plays an important role in supporting the exercise of…