Search
Content type: Long Read
In December 2017, Privacy International published an investigation into the use of data and microtargeting during the 2017 Kenyan elections. Cambridge Analytica was one of the companies that featured as part of our investigation.
Due to the recent reporting on Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, we have seen renewed interest in this issue and our investigation. Recently in March of 2018, Channel 4 News featured a report on micro targeting during the 2017 Kenyan Presidential Elections, and the…
Content type: Long Read
Disclaimer: This piece was written in April 2017. Since publishing, further information has come out about Cambridge Analytica and the company's involvement in elections.
Recently, the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica has been the centre of tons of debate around the use of profiling and micro-targeting in political elections. We’ve written this analysis to explain what it all means, and the consequences of becoming predictable to companies and political campaigns.
What does…
Content type: News & Analysis
Large institutions tend to focus internally, with minimal regard to the external environment. Open Databecoming institutionalised is not different, and as a leading edge country in opening data, the UK is making the predictable mistakes first:
The UK’s Department for Education (DfE) is currently considering opening data from the National Pupil Database. At a preparation event for this initiative, at which some data was released for use in an ‘appathon’, one participant believed he…
Content type: News & Analysis
The UK Minister for Education, Michael Gove, today stated in Parliament that he would be moving forward his plans to open up the National Pupil Database, and announced a government consultation on the initiative. The Minister promised that "all requests to access extracts of data would go through a robust approval process and successful organisations would be subject to strict terms and conditions covering their handling and use of the data, including having…
Content type: News & Analysis
Privacy International's recent complaint to the UK Information Commissioner has threatened to bring to a halt an imminent plan to fingerprint all domestic and international passengers departing from Heathrow's Terminal 1 and Terminal 5, due to begin on March 27th. The British media is reporting that in response to PI's complaint, the Information Commissioner has advised that passengers should only accept fingerprinting "under protest" until our complaint is resolved.
The prospect of…
Content type: News & Analysis
In a tipping of the hat to the Americans, the UK is set to establish the largest border surveillance programme to date. The new programme will involve the collection of biometrics on visitors to the UK, the generation of vast information stores on all Britons and visitors, and a profiling system to identify those worthy of further scrutiny.
This programme does not merely apply to combatting terrorism however; it is for use for general policing matters.
We have archived the 'partial'…