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Content type: Examples
Data-driven wellbeing audits are becoming common in classrooms in Denmark, which has long invested heavily in digital teaching aids and interactive learning. In the last few decades, depression among Danish children has sextupled, and a quarter of ninth-graders report having attempted self-harm. Platforms such as Woof offer teachers regular feedback based on anonymous self-reports. Similar systems in the US extend to surveilling students' emails, chat, and searches.Experts are concerned that…
Content type: Examples
The rise of hybrid work has led to a rise in "bossware": increasingly intrusive technology that monitors employees, tracks their locations, and watches or listens to office workers via cameras and microphones. 90% of such systems can give employers a list of everything a worker has done that day. The cost of such systems has dropped, as has employer trust in staff. The increasing surveillance, now with AI predictive functions, threatens job security and increases the power companies have over…
Content type: Advocacy
To the Members of the European Parliament and to the Committee on Budgets of the European Parliament
The EU urgently needs to step up and provide assistance to protect the health and safety of people trapped in camps on the Greek islands - not just to protect their welfare, but to contain the virus itself as a matter of global public health.
However, as we detail in the briefing below, the current European Commission proposal for funds allocation is insufficient to ensure the safety of…
Content type: Examples
8 europeans telecoms providers (Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Orange,Telefonica, Telecom Italia , Telenor, Telia and A1 Telekom Austria) have agreed to share mobile phone location data with the European Commission to track the spread of the coronavirus.
The Commission said it would use anonymsed data and aggregated mobile phone location to coordinate the tracking of the virus spread. They also announced the data would be deleted after the crisis.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-…
Content type: Examples
The European Commission urged Europe's telecoms giants, including Deutsche Telekom and Orange, to share their users' mobile data streams from across the region to help predict the spread of the coronavirus "for the common good". In a letter in response, Dutch Renew MEP Sophie In't Veld stressed that that data must remain anonymised, and questioned the usefulness of aggregating very large quantities of location data from millions of Europeans who are locked down. Meanwhile, questions are being…
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: Long Read
The UK border authority is using money ring-fenced for aid to train, finance, and provide equipment to foreign border control agencies in a bid to “export the border” to countries around the world.
Under the UK Border Force’s “Project Hunter”, the agency works with foreign security authorities to bolster their “border intelligence and targeting” capabilities with UK know-how and equipment.
As well as the provision of equipment and training, the Border Force is also advising countries on…
Content type: News & Analysis
European leaders met last week in Brussels to discuss what is supposed to be two separate issues, the next trillion euro-plus budget and migration. In truth, no such separation exists: driven by nationalists and a political mainstream unable to offer any alternative but to implement their ideas, the next budget is in fact all about migration.
This strategy contained within the budget will get the approval of Hilary Clinton, who recently told the Guardian that ‘Europe needs to get a handle on…
Content type: Advocacy
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The EU extensively bolsters the surveillance and border control capabilities of governments around the world – and is set to dramatically increase such support. Below, we look at how some of these existing funds are being used, how their proposed expansion will undermine people’s privacy around the world for decades to come, and what needs to be done about it.
Migration has dominated the recent EU agenda and will once again be central during this week’s European Council meeting…
Content type: Long Read
Yesterday, the European Court of Human Rights issued its judgement in Big Brother Watch & Others V. the UK. Below, we answer some of the main questions relating to the case.
What's the ruling all about?
In a nutshell, one of the world's most important courts, the European Court of Human Rights, yesterday found that certain UK laws about how intelligence agencies can spy on our internet communications breach our human rights. These surveillance laws have meant that the UK intelligence…
Content type: Report
Countries with powerful security agencies are spending literally billions to equip, finance and train security and surveillance agencies around the world — including authoritarian regimes. This is resulting in entrenched authoritarianism, further facilitation of abuse against people, and diversion of resources from long-term development programmes.
Privacy International's report 'Teach 'em to Phish: State Sponsors of Surveillance' examines this problem closely, providng examples from US, China…
Content type: Long Read
Privacy International (PI) has today released a new report, 'Teach 'em to Phish: State Sponsors of Surveillance', showing how countries with powerful security agencies are training, equipping, and directly financing foreign surveillance agencies.
Spurred by advances in technology, increased surveillance is both powered by and empowering rising authoritarianism globally, as well as attacks on democracy, rights, and the rule of law.
As well as providing a background to the issue, the report…
Content type: Press release
Privacy International has today released a report that looks at how powerful governments are financing, training and equipping countries — including authoritarian regimes — with surveillance capabilities. The report warns that rather than increasing security, this is entrenching authoritarianism.
Countries with powerful security agencies are spending literally billions to equip, finance, and train security and surveillance agencies around the world — including authoritarian regimes. This is…
Content type: Press release
Privacy International, Liberty, and Open Rights Group have joined over 60 NGOs, community groups, and academics across the European Union to file complaints to the European Commission. The complaints call for the EU governments to stop requiring companies to store all communications data. The practice was ruled unlawful by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in two separate judgments in 2014 and 2016. The UK complaint was filed by Privacy International, Liberty, and Open Rights…
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
Following the alarming evidence that EU-made electronic surveillance equipment is still being exported to authoritarian countries around the world, we strongly urge all EU member states and institutions to respect their human rights obligations and call on them to prioritise long overdue EU reforms.
We are extremely concerned that little has changed since civil society first recognised the need to modernise current EU rules governing the export of surveillance equipment as far back…
Content type: News & Analysis
7 July 2016
It has been said is that we pay for free services with our personal data. Now, the Privacy Shield exponentially expands this truth and we are paying for the cost of U.S. political dysfunction combined with EU complacency with our privacy. More than four months after the first EU-US Privacy Shield was published on 29 February 2016, a new version has been leaked. Remarkably, it is expected to be adopted.
Four months, two opinions by group of EU data protection…
Content type: News & Analysis
This piece originally appeared in Open Democracy here.
As the UK Parliament returns from its summer break, everyone’s back to talking about Brexit. But there’s another policy of existential significance to our democracy that we really need to be talking about. I refer here to the innocuously named ‘Investigatory Powers Bill’. The House of Lords have been debating the ‘bulk powers’ — what we would call the mass surveillance measures — of the Bill over the recent days. We are literally…
Content type: Advocacy
Privacy International has responded to the European Commission’s consultation on the interoperability of EU information systems for borders and security.
The Commission is currently looking at ways in which various border control and policing EU databases and IT systems can be connected to share and exchange more data.
The plans raise a number of concerns as highlighted by Privacy International in our response. These relate to significant potential harms associated with…
Content type: Advocacy
On 23 October 2017, Privacy International contributed to the public consultation of the European Commission on improving cross border access to electronic evidence for criminal investigation. The consultation raises important questions, particularly in relation to preserving human rights protection and safeguards as national police forces seek digital evidence in other jurisdictions.
The EU is not the only inter-governmental organisation seeking to address the complex jurisdictional…
Content type: Press release
Key points
Privacy International surveyed 21 EU member states' legislation on data retention and examined their compliance with fundamental human rights standards
0 out of the 21 States examined by PI are currently in compliance with these standards (as interpreted in two landmark judgements by the Court of Justice of the European Union: Tele-2/Watson and Digital Rights Ireland)
Privacy International is calling for:
EU member states to review their legislation on data retention…
Content type: Advocacy
This report sheds light on the current state of affairs in data retention regulation across the EU post the Tele-2/Watson judgment. Privacy International has consulted with digital rights NGOs and industry from across the European Union to survey 21 national jurisdictions (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United…
Content type: Press release
Please find attached a copy of the briefing along with promotional photographs with the briefing.
Privacy International has today sent top EU and UK Brexit negotiators* a briefing on their vulnerability to potential surveillance by each other, and others. Brexit negotiations are to begin today.
The global privacy rights NGO has highlighted to the negotiators the risk of sophisticated surveillance capabilities being deployed against each other and by others, and provided…
Content type: Press release
PI Research Officer Edin Omanovic said:
“The European Commission has proposed sweeping updates [PDF] to trade regulations in an effort to modernise the EU’s export control system and to ensure that the trade in surveillance technology does not facilitate human rights abuses or internal repression.
Privacy International welcomes the intentions of the proposed changes in terms of protecting human rights as it does all such moves. More than half of the world’s surveillance…
Content type: Press release
Today, Privacy International, together with five internet and communications providers from around the world, have lodged an application before the European Court of Human Rights to challenge the British Government's use of bulk hacking abroad. Until we brought our original case at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) in 2014, the Government had never admitted that it engaged in hacking. Now we are learning for the first time how far-reaching the Government's global hacking capabilities are…
Content type: Press release
The committee of data protection regulators across Europe, the Working Party 29, announced today its opinion on the current “Privacy Shield”. The Opinion is expected shortly, and based on the statements made by the Working Party chair in a press conference, we understand that the Working Party, while noting improvements from the annulled “Safe Harbor” agreement, has serious concerns about a range of aspects of the current "Privacy Shield" agreement with the U.S.
Overall they note the…
Content type: News & Analysis
Should the European Union agree to legitimise trade with a country that refuses to adhere to European legal standards? This is the fundamental question that will be addressed at tomorrow’s meeting among European privacy regulators when they publish their opinion on the data-sharing agreement known as the ‘Privacy Shield’, the replacement to the failed ‘Safe Harbour’ agreement.
Background
Many of the world’s largest companies, such as Google and Facebook, store their customers’ data in…
Content type: News & Analysis
PI's full analysis can be read here
On 29 February 2016, the European Commission and the US government released the details of the proposed EU-U.S. “Privacy Shield”. The “Privacy Shield” replaces the now defunct so-called “Safe Harbor”.
The Privacy Shield is in fact a significant number of documents from various parts of the U.S. administration, which merely outline the existing, weak U.S. safeguards applicable to personal data of EU citizens. These documents are…
Content type: Advocacy
Introduction
On 29 February 2016, the European Commission and the US government released the details of the proposed EU-U.S. “Privacy Shield”. The “Privacy Shield” replaces the now defunct so-called “Safe Harbor”.
The Privacy Shield is in fact a significant number of documents from various parts of the U.S. administration, which merely outline the existing, weak U.S. safeguards applicable to personal data of EU citizens. These documents are meant to serve as the basis for an “adequacy”…