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Content type: News & Analysis
12th May 2021
This month, the Aspen Card - the debit payment card given to asylum seekers that PI has previously exposed as a de facto surveillance tool - will be outsourced to a new company. The contract with Sodexo has come to an end and the company Prepaid Financial Services will be taking over.
As a result of our campaign, the Home Office wrote a response that we have found wholly inadequate and raising more questions than answers. You can read more about the Home Office's response here.
While we still…
Content type: News & Analysis
27th April 2021
Back in 2019, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced a partnership between the NHS and Amazon Alexa. The goal of the partnership was for Alexa to be able to use the content of the NHS website when people asked health-related questions.
At the time, we expressed a number of concerns regarding this agreement: Amazon did not appear to be an actor that should be trusted with our health information, and seeing the Health Secretary publicly praising this new agreement appeared to give Amazon…
Content type: News & Analysis
30th March 2021
This blog post by Coding Rights was originally published in Portuguese at: https://tinyurl.com/mediumcodingrightsTransID. It was written by Mariah Rafaela Silva and Joana Varon and translated by Erly Guedes. Illustration was produced by Clarote.
On the International Transgender Day of Visibility, Mariah Rafaela Silva and Joana Varon authors of the report “Facial recognition in the public sector and trans identities: techno-politics of control, surveillance and threats to gender diversity in…
Content type: News & Analysis
17th March 2021
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Bill is currently being scrutinised by numerous civil society organisations such as Amnesty International UK and Liberty for its damaging impacts on peaceful protests, however it also contains important provisions regarding when, if and how the police and other governmental authorities can extract data from your phones and other electronic devices.
Chapter 3 of the PCSC Bill is a legislative response to the UK's Information Commissioner's Office…
Content type: News & Analysis
15th March 2021
We have set out our understanding of the NFI’s current functioning here.
The National Fraud Initiative is a data-matching exercise overseen by the Cabinet Office which allows a range of public and private sector entities to access personal data, exclusively for the purposes of preventing and detecting fraud. A current government consultation suggests expanding the NFI to include four new, wide-ranging purposes:
Data-matching to assist in the prevention and detection of crime (other than fraud…
Content type: News & Analysis
11th March 2021
Unwanted Witness’ research into Safeboda highlighted the company’s failure to comply with some of the law's core data protection principles, with a number of implications for the exercise of data subject rights. The enforcement action against Safeboda by National Information Technology Authority, Uganda (NITA-U) requires the company to make fundamental changes to how they handle people's personal data in order to comply with the Data Protection and Privacy Act, 2019.
This first landmark…
Content type: News & Analysis
8th March 2021
The College of Policing public consultation concerned the new Code of Practice in relation to the way information is managed and recorded in the Police National Computer (PNC), Police National Database (PND) and the forthcoming Law Enforcement Data Service (LEDS).
PI and Open Rights Group (ORG) believe that the way police records and information are managed, stored and disposed of can pose serious threats to privacy and other fundamental rights. Therefore they must not only be subject to strong…
Content type: Case Study
28th January 2021
Your phone is the ideal profit tool for data brokers and advertisers: it's always in your pocket and can be used both as a means of collecting information and serving you ads based on that information. But how does this data collection happen through your apps?
Most, if not all, apps on our phones use Software Development Kits (SDKs). SDKs themselves are not trackers, but they are the means through which most tracking through mobile apps occurs. These kits are provided by third parties and…
Content type: Case Study
28th January 2021
Behind their tecchie names, AddThis and ShareThis are simple services: they allow web-developers and less tech-savvy users to integrate social networking "share" buttons on their site. While they might also offer some additional services such as analytics, these tools gained traction mostly by providing an easy and free way to integrate Facebook, Twitter and other social networks share buttons. Anyone can use any of these service and in a few clicks be provided with a plugin for their…
Content type: News & Analysis
15th January 2021
Over the past years, there has been much attention paid to political advertising transparency on online platforms. Growing internet penetration and the rising popularity of social media have made social media platforms a key battlefield for political actors in the fight for votes, where political ads have proved themselves to be a popular weapon. This means online transparency towards voters has become more imperative than ever.
And yet, social media platforms’ regulation of political ads…
Content type: Video
15th January 2021
This podcast was recorded before the US Federal Trade Commission told a company called 'Ever' to delete any facial recognition algorithms they developed without consent
Links:
The original article
Info on how to do your own Data Subject Access Request
And the template from the ICO
Info on how to request your data be deleted
Find more from Ann Cavoukian
Find out more about the ACLU's legal challenge in Illinois
Find out more about Robert Julian-Borchack William's case
Read more…
Content type: Video
9th January 2021
Links!
If you're worried about your devices and a controlling partner, we have some tips for you; you can also find out more at women's aid's website.
Find out more about our court victory.
Listen to Dr David Crepaz-Keay from the Mental health Foundation talk about mental health and tech
Tom on immunity passports
Lucy on marketing and maternity and low cost tech
Eva and smart cities
And support PI's work at support.privacyinternational.org
You can listen and subscribe to the podcast…
Content type: Long Read
17th December 2020
As we see Covid-19 vaccination programmes beginning around the world, for the first time since the start of the pandemic there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel as the fruition of truly unrivalled global scientific efforts has given us hope of saving lives, reopening our societies, and going back to “normal”.
This great moment of hope must not be seen opportunistically as yet another data grab. The deployment of vaccines, and in particular any “immunity passport” or certificate…
Content type: Video
4th December 2020
**Language advisory: Gus does several swearwords this episode including one f-word at 9:45
From surveillance drones to cameras to wiretapping and more - the EU are providing technologies that will be used to crush political and civil freedoms and undermine democracy without urgent reforms
Find out more:
https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/4288/borders-without-borders-how-eu-exporting-surveillance-bid-outsource-its-border
https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/4291/…
Content type: News & Analysis
10th November 2020
The “EU Trust Fund for Stability and Addressing Root Causes of Irregular Migration and Displaced Persons in Africa” (EUTF for Africa) isn’t exactly headline news (and nor does it exactly roll off the tongue), but its influence is vast and will be felt for decades to come for millions of people across Africa.
Set up in the wake of the 2015 ‘migration crisis’ in Europe and largely made up of money earmarked for development aid (80% of its budget comes from development and humanitarian aid funds…
Content type: Long Read
10th November 2020
The European Union (EU) is the world’s largest donor of development aid, an instrumental supporter of democracies and peace around the world, and a powerful global force for reigning-in big tech and other exploitative industries.
But since the 2015 migration crisis and with populist anti-immigration parties in power across the Union, it has focused this immensely powerful influence abroad squarely on managing flows of migration: using its economic, diplomatic, and security might to outsource…
Content type: News & Analysis
6th November 2020
PI is collaborating with The Carter Center election observation mission in the run up to and after Myanmar's national election on November 8th. The Carter Center is a US based NGO that has been invited to observe 111 elections in 39 countries since 1989. It has maintained a presence in Myanmar since 2013 when it's office was established in Yangon, and carried out long term observation for the 2015 election as well as 2020. The international election observer mission (IEOM) assesses the…
Content type: Video
5th November 2020
Find out more about the Mental Health Foundation here: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/
If you're worried about your mental health and want to try the NHS's mood self-assesment you can find it here: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/mood-self-assessment/
Read our work on mental health here: https://privacyinternational.org/campaigns/your-mental-health-sale
And you can support PI's work here: support.privacyinternational.org
You can listen and subscribe to the podcast…
Content type: Report
29th October 2020
One name in tech has become embroiled in controversy: Palantir, a big-data analytics outfit.
Palantir weren’t that well known in the UK until the Covid-19 pandemic, when they were thrust into the national spotlight after the UK Government granted them access to reportedly unprecedented quantities of NHS patient data for processing and analysis in response to the novel Coronavirus.
Palantir isn’t just working with the NHS, yet despite their extensive work with the government could potentially…
Content type: Frequently Asked Questions
27th October 2020
On 27 October 2020, the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) issued a report into three credit reference agencies (CRAs) - Experian, Equifax and TransUnion - which also operate as data brokers for direct marketing purposes.
After our initial reaction, below we answer some of the main questions regarding this report.
Content type: News & Analysis
27th October 2020
Privacy International (PI) welcomes today's report from the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) into three credit reference agencies (CRAs) which also operate as data brokers for direct marketing purposes. As a result, the ICO has ordered the credit reference agency Experian to make fundamental changes to how it handles people's personal data within its offline direct marketing services.
It is a long overdue enforcement action against Experian.
Read our Q&A on the report here.…
Content type: Video
9th October 2020
Find out more on our website: https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/4206/qa-eus-top-court-rules-uk-french-and-belgian-mass-surveillance-regimes-must-respect
And make sure we can keep taking these fights to court: support.privacyinternational.org
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Content type: Long Read
Q&A: EU's top court rules that UK, French and Belgian mass surveillance regimes must respect privacy
6th October 2020
Content type: News & Analysis
2nd October 2020
On September 16, Google announced their intention to enforce a new "stalkerware" policy after a 15 day grace period ending on 1 October 2020.The policy change states that the Google Play Store will only host stalkerware apps that give "a persistent notification is displayed while the data is being transmitted."
In its announcement, Google defines stalkerware as "Code that transmits personal information off the device without adequate notice or consent and doesn't…
Content type: News & Analysis
24th September 2020
Back in June, we published our investigation into Facebook brands, highlighting how Facebook failed to provide its users with a fair and meaningful understanding of how targeted advertising operated on its platform, and a number of issues preventing users from exercising their rights to the fullest possible extent. In face of the serious gaps encountered, we published an open letter to Facebook drawing attention to four main issues as well as our recommended actions to tackle them. This letter…
Content type: Case Study
17th September 2020
Como is one of the most advanced cities in Italy in the use of facial recognition technology (FRT). An investigation for the Italian Wired magazine published in June 2020 exposed how the system had been bought, installed and tested for months with little transparency and despite the lack of a clear legal framework.
The investigation was entirely based on tools available to everyone, such as Freedom of Information requests (FOI requests. Similar to PI’s campaign 'Unmasking policing, inc', it…
Content type: News & Analysis
3rd September 2020
The Law Enforcement Data Service (LEDS) is a unified, common interface to a new mega-database currently being developed by the Home Office National Law Enforcement Data Programme (NLEDP). We believe that the development of the programme poses a threat to privacy and other rights and must be subjected to strong oversight, safeguards, and transparency measures.
As we explained in our analysis, the data in LEDS is vast, ever-increasing, worryingly mixes both evidential and intelligence material –…
Content type: News & Analysis
26th August 2020
A new report by the UN Working Group on mercenaries analyses the impact of the use of private military and security services in immigration and border management on the rights of migrants, and highlights the responsibilities of private actors in human rights abuses as well as lack of oversight and, ultimately, of accountability of the system.
Governments worldwide have prioritised an approach to immigration that criminalises the act of migration and focuses on security.
Today, borders are not…
Content type: News & Analysis
17th August 2020
In the last few weeks, the UK government has announced various new measures to ensure that crossings across the Channel were “inviable” including by appointing a new role of “clandestine Channel threat commander" and further plans to deploy the navy to stop migrants from crossing to the UK from France across the Channel. Premature plans it seems, as not only would such measures be contrary to the UK’s international obligations to allow individuals to seek asylum in the UK, but also since such…
Content type: News & Analysis
6th August 2020
No doubt this is turning out to be a summer full of news about internet companies' digital dominance.
In June, Google notified the European Commission of its plan to acquire Fitbit - a plan that we immediately identified would raise grave concerns for our well-being as consumers.
Today the European Commission has made its decision. And it's good news.
The European regulator has decided to undertake a detailed 'Phase 2' investigation, rather than just green light Google's plans, voicing also the…