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Content type: Report
Privacy International’s submissions for the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration inspection of the Home Office Satellite Tracking Service Programme
The Home Office have introduced 24/7 electronic monitoring and collection of the location data of migrants via GPS ankle tags. This seismic change cannot be overstated. The use of GPS tags and intention to use location data, kept for six years after the tag is removed, in immigration decision-making goes far beyond the mere…
Content type: News & Analysis
What happened
On 22 July 2021, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) issued a declaration on our challenge to the UK bulk communications regime finding that section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 (since repealed by the Investigatory Powers Act 2016) was incompatible with EU law human rights standards. The result of the judgment is that a decade’s worth of secret data capture has been held to be unlawful. The unlawfulness would have remained a secret but for PI’s work.
You can find…
Content type: News & Analysis
Today Advocate General (AG) Campos Sánchez-Bordona of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), issued his opinions (C-623/17, C-511/18 and C-512/18 and C-520/18) on how he believes the Court should rule on vital questions relating to the conditions under which security and intelligence agencies in the UK, France and Belgium could have access to communications data retained by telecommunications providers.
The AG addressed two major questions:
(1) When states seek to impose…
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: 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 proposed…
Content type: Press release
The Case
Privacy International v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs et al. (Bulk Personal Datasets & Bulk Communications Data challenge)
Date: 5-9 June 2017
Time: from 10:00 onwards
Location: Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London WC2A 2LL United Kingdom
Hearing overview
Next week’s hearing follows the Investigatory Powers Tribunal’s earlier judgment in October 2016, which ruled that three issues are to be determined:
a) the impact of EU law…
Content type: News & Analysis
The recent announcement by the Minister for Justice that serious and organised crime will receive legislative attention from the Government and the Oireachtas is most welcome. However, the stated means of achieving this are deeply concerning for the Irish public and larger digital economy. The statements indicate that the Government intends to follow the British model of surveillance where Irish companies can be compelled to betray their users. Why would any user engage with a service that…
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 negotiators a Faraday…
Content type: News & Analysis
Brexit and Privacy
It's as clear as mud, what it means when a country decides to willingly pull out of a trading bloc, a policy coordination mechanism, a relatively democratic network, and a framework for the free flow of people, data, and rights. Meanwhile today the minister in charge of surveillance for the past six years will assume the leadership of the country.
There is much speculation as to what is next. Here's our take. Importantly, there's a lot to be worried about, some to like,…
Content type: News & Analysis
This piece was written by PI Research Officer Edin Omanovic and originally appeared here.
Whatever happens over the next few years, if there is to be a storm, then it is best to prepare. It is essential that western liberal democratic societies are resilient enough to uphold their fundamental values.
One of the UK’s biggest security assets is one of its biggest security threats. The UK’s spies have access to and are allowed to exercise some of the most sophisticated electronic surveillance…
Content type: Press release
For further information please contact PI Legal Officer Millie Graham Wood: camilla@privacyinternational.org
For media enquiries please contact press@privacyinternational.org
Documents obtained by Privacy International reveal the existence of a secret oversight function given to the Intelligence Services Commissioner (ISC), in operation since at least 2014. The details of this function, referred to as the ‘third direction’, remain redacted and only came to light following disclosure of the…
Content type: Long Read
This piece was written by Ashley Gorski, who is an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, and PI legal officer Scarlet Kim and originally appeared in The Guardian here.
In recent weeks, the Hollywood film about Edward Snowden and the movement to pardon the NSA whistleblower have renewed worldwide attention on the scope and substance of government surveillance programs. In the United States, however, the debate has often been a narrow one, focused on the rights of Americans under…
Content type: Long Read
This week, Privacy International, together with nine other international human rights NGOs, filed submissions with the European Court of Human Rights. Our case challenges the UK government’s bulk interception of internet traffic transiting fiber optic cables landing in the UK and its access to information similarly intercepted in bulk by the US government, which were revealed by the Snowden disclosures. To accompany our filing, we have produced two infographics to illustrate the complex process…
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: News & Analysis
Privacy International is today proud to release the Surveillance Industry Index (SII), the world's largest publicly available educational resource of data and documents of its kind on the surveillance industry, and an accompanying report charting the growth of the industry and its current reach.
The SII, which is based on data collected by journalists, activists, and researchers across the world is the product of months of collaboration between Transparency Toolkit and Privacy International.…
Content type: Long Read
Privacy International’s case on Bulk Personal Datasets and Bulk Communications Data comes to a head with a four-day hearing in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal which commenced on 26 July 2016.
The litigation has brought to light significant revelations about the use of section 94 of the 1984 Telecommunications Act to obtain bulk communications data.
Large amounts of disclosure have shed new light on this hitherto secret power and explained confusing aspects of the Government’s Response to…
Content type: Press release
Privacy International General Counsel Caroline Wilson Palow said
"Today's opinion issued by the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is a serious blow to the UK's Investigatory Powers Bill (IPBill). It, hopefully, presages a strong judgment from the Court itself.
The bulk powers - what we would call mass surveillance powers - embedded throughout the IPBill go far beyond tackling serious crime. They would give a range of public bodies, not just the Police and intelligence…
Content type: Press release
A new Twitter Bot, launched today by the global privacy rights organisation Privacy International, ‘reveals’ the internet browsing history of leading politicians, as well as details of their telephone, text message, WhatsApp, and even Snapchat communications. @GCHQbot has been launched to raise the profile of the sensitivity of our internet browsing history and communications data, on the day that the Investigatory Powers Bill begins its Committee Stage in the House of Lords.
Bot: https://…
Content type: Press release
Today Sir Stanley Burnton, the Interception of Communications Commissioner, published a highly critical review of the use of Section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 for gathering vast amounts of our communications data in bulk. This obscure clause pre-dates the internet era, but has been used for nearly two decades for mass surveillance. Today is the first time that these powers have been criticised by an independent statutory body. IOCCO is critical of the Government's use of these…
Content type: Press release
Judges of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal visited MI5 in 2007 for a secret briefing. None of the judges hearing the case this week attended the briefing.
At the briefing, MI5 persuaded the judges that MI5 did not usually have to disclose its data holdings in “Bulk Personal Datasets” to the Tribunal. These are highly intrusive datasets that have details of a vast number of people's location, internet use, financial information and telephone records.
This meant that, as complaints were…
Content type: Press release
Previously secret official documents, containing new revelations about the Government's mass surveillance regime, have today been disclosed as a result of litigation brought by Privacy International against the Intelligence Agencies (MI5, MI6, GCHQ). These documents shed further light on the secretive bulk data collection regime operating under section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 and the Bulk Personal Data-set regime.
Documents available: https://privacyinternational.org/legal-…
Content type: Press release
Tomorrow, on 26 July, the main hearing will begin in Privacy International's legal challenge against MI6, MI5, and GCHQ's collection of bulk communications data and bulk personal datasets. Previously secret documents will be made public at the hearing, and Privacy International will brief attending journalists about the significance of the disclosed documents.
The hearing will include references to important documents detailing the collection of data on every citizen in the UK including:…
Content type: Press release
Harmit Kambo, Campaigns Director, Privacy International said
"The overwhelming vote by MPs last night in favour of massively intrusive new state surveillance powers represents both a failure of the democratic process and a grim watershed moment for the privacy of every one of us.
Over the course of the Bill Committee stage, Privacy International, alongside experts from academia, technology firms, the legal profession, human rights organisations, and civil liberties groups have proposed over…
Content type: Press release
Privacy International releases previously confidential correspondence between lawyers for MI5 and GCHQ and the former Interception of Communications Commissioner, highlighting problems with the relationship between the two bodies
The correspondences show a lack of meaningful oversight and restraint of UK surveillance agencies
Ahead of the vital commons vote on the Investigatory Powers Bill, we need to create a system that guarantees better oversight of surveillance powers
Today, under embargo…
Content type: News & Analysis
Another committee-led scrutiny. Another list of changes that need to be made to the Investigatory Powers Bill. This seems familiar.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights has weighed in with scrutiny of the Investigatory Powers Bill prior to the Bill’s debate and vote in the House of Commons on the 6 and 7 June. The recommendations the report contains once again raise questions about the fitness of the Bill to be passed in its current form.
The Committee identified thematic warrants - which…
Content type: News & Analysis
Thank you to those of you who joined our campaign, 'Did GCHQ Illegally Spy on You?'. If you made a claim to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) - the court that hears claims about surveillance by public bodies, including the intelligence agencies - to find out if GCHQ has illegally obtained your communications, you will have probably received a letter or email from the IPT by now. We've written a 'Frequently Asked Questions' (FAQ) to help clarify what the ruling means and how you can now…
Content type: Press release
Despite Government attempts to stop 650 claims about surveillance being investigated, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal has today ruled that the cases can be heard
However, the Tribunal is requiring the 650 claimants to submit further information demonstrating that they are "potentially at risk" of unlawful surveillance, prior to investigating their claims of unlawful spying
The Tribunal has said that people outside the UK have no legal right to find out if British intelligence agencies…
Content type: News & Analysis
This letter originally appeared here.
Dear Home Secretary
You are fortunate that the SNP and Labour Party courageously abstained from the vote on the Investigatory Powers Bill, content with government assurances that mass surveillance of British citizens is not government policy. Mass surveillance is not, and could never be, government policy. Merely government practice.
I congratulate you on your much-quoted claim that the Investigatory Powers Bill will contain a “world-leading oversight…
Content type: News & Analysis
“It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife”. Alanis Morissette thought that was ironic. I never thought so. I suggest a far more ironic lyric to you Alanis - "It’s like the Home Office not listening during a consultation about how it wants to listen to everything you do’. OK, it might not be the catchiest lyric, but you can’t say it’s not ironic.
Today the latest version of the Investigatory Powers Bill was published. The Government might want some credit for being transparent and…
Content type: Long Read
1984: A broad law, a broad power and a whole lot of secrecy
In the wake of litigation brought by Privacy International (‘PI’) and as the Government prepared to introduce the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill (‘IP Bill’) in November 2015, there was a cascade of ‘avowals’- admissions that the intelligence agencies carry out some highly intrusive surveillance operations under powers contained in outdated and confusing legislation.
It is disappointing that it has been almost six months since the…