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Content type: News & Analysis
15th October 2021
Privacy International (PI) together with a coalition of human rights groups have today called on the European Ombudsman, the EU’s oversight body, to investigate evidence that the block is supporting surveillance in non-EU countries in breach of its own rules.
The groups have submitted a complaint accompanied by a dossier of evidence to the European Ombudsman outlining how EU bodies and agencies are cooperating with governments around the world to increase their surveillance powers.
Privacy…
Content type: Report
1st June 2021
In this briefing, Amnesty International, PI and The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) discuss the corporate structure of NSO group, one of the surveillance industry's well-known participants. The lack of transparency around NSO Group’s corporate structure and the lack of information about the relevant jurisdictions within which it operates are significant barriers in seeking prevention of, and accountability for, human rights violations reportedly linked to NSO Group’s…
Content type: Long Read
25th May 2021
On 25 May 2021, the European Court of Human Rights issued its judgment in Big Brother Watch & Others v. the UK. Below, we answer some of the main questions relating to the case.
After our initial reaction, below we answer some of the main questions relating to the case.
NOTE: This post reflects our initial reaction to the judgment and may be updated.
What’s the ruling all about?
In a nutshell, one of the world’s most important courts, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human…
Content type: Press release
25th May 2021
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has today ruled that UK mass surveillance laws violate the rights to privacy and freedom of expression.
It found that:
The UK’s historical bulk interception regime violated the right to privacy protected by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and freedom of expression, protected by Article 10. Particularly it found that:
the absence of independent authorisation,
the failure to include the categories of selectors in…
Content type: Report
23rd March 2021
Human rights defenders across the world have been facing increasing threats and harms as result of the use of digital and technological tools used by governments and companies which enable the surveillance, monitoring and tracking of individuals and communities. They are continuously at risk of violence, intimidation and surveillance as a direct consequence of the work they do. Such surveillance has been shown to lead to arbitrary detention, sometimes to torture and possibly to extrajudicial…
Content type: Case Study
23rd October 2020
Sebastián Gómez is a land rights defender. He is based in Colombia.
Qn: Please briefly describe your work and the issues/topics you work on.
I am researcher for an organisation working on topics related to the defense of the territory and environmental protection. We operate in different regions, including those which have been historically subjected to violence due to the armed conflict and which are now experiencing a spike in a range of environmental conflicts. Our work consists of…
Content type: Case Study
23rd October 2020
Ananda Badudu is an activist, musician and former journalist. In September 2019, he started a crowdfunding campaign page to support student protesters taking part in demonstrations against the Indonesian House of Representatives.
Qn: Please briefly describe your work and the issues/topics you work on.
I’ve been full-time musician for 2 years. Before that I was a journalist from 2010 to 2016, first at Tempo, then at Vice. In late September 2019, I took part in a crowd-funding campaign in…
Content type: Long Read
26th June 2020
What Do We Know?
In late March, the NHS quietly announced that it would give technology businesses access to unprecedented quantities of patient data for processing and analysis in response to COVID-19. One of those businesses is CIA-backed Palantir Technologies. Palantir’s software is allegedly “mission critical” to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) mass raids, detentions, and deportations. Despite trusting Palantir with patient data, the NHS has been tight-lipped about the scope…
Content type: News & Analysis
19th June 2020
IMSI catchers (or stingrays as they are known in the US) are one of the surveillance technologies that has come to the forefront again in the protests against police brutality and systemic racism that have been sparked by the murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020.
An International Mobile Subscriber Identity catcher – in short an “IMSI catcher” – is an intrusive piece of technology that can be used to locate and track all mobile phones that are switched on in a certain area. It does so by…
Content type: News & Analysis
9th June 2020
Traduction réalisée par Nadine Blum.
Le 29 mai, le Congrès nigérien a voté une loi permettant au gouvernement d’intercepter largement certaines communications électroniques. La loi rend légale l’interception de communications, autorisée par le gouvernement, sans protections appropriées ni mécanismes de contrôle.
La loi a été adoptée avec 104 votes pour – le Parlement nigérien compte 171 membres – et sans la participation de l’opposition qui a boycotté la loi. L’opposition a affirmé que la loi…
Content type: News & Analysis
2nd June 2020
On 29 May, Niger’s Congress voted on a law allowing for broad interception powers of certain electronic communications by the government. The bill makes it lawful for the government to approve the interception of communications without appropriate safeguards or oversight mechanisms.
The law passed with 104 votes – the Nigerien parliament has 171 members – without the participation of the opposition that boycotted the law. The opposition claimed that
the law will allow those, for whose…
Content type: Examples
20th May 2020
The Australian journalist Chris Buckley, who reports for the New York Times, was forced to leave China on April 10 after 24 years of reporting on the country, bringing the number of journalists forced out of the country in the last year to 19.
After travelling to Wuhan to report on the unfolding outbreak on the day the city was locked down in January, he was told to stop when his press card expired in February. The division of the Foreign Ministry responsible for international media…
Content type: Examples
20th May 2020
The International Press Institute has found that in both democratic and autocratic states the public health crisis has given governments the excuse of preventing the spread of disinformation to exercise control over the media, whether by criminalising journalism or controlling the public narrative and restricting access to information about the pandemic. The International Federal of Journalists has also found that three-quarters of journalists report that working conditions have deteriorated…
Content type: Advocacy
7th May 2020
Privacy International responded to the call for submissions of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the rights of peoples to self-determination on role of private military and security companies in immigration and border management and the impact on the protection of the rights of all migrants.
This submission builds on PI’s research and reporting highlighting examples of the involvement of private companies in…
Content type: Examples
28th April 2020
On April 20 Hong Kong authorities arrested some of the most prominent anti-China activists. The need to clear the streets to protect public health during the COVID-19 outbreak provided the authorities an opportunity to cripple the protest movement that had spread across the country beginning in mid-2019. Chinese officials in Hong Kong have also called for improved national security education in the city and for the passage of a national security law giving law enforcement and prosecutors…
Content type: Examples
22nd April 2020
Tanzania's Communication Regulatory Authority punished three TV stations for airing content that was "misleading and untrue" about the government's strategy on fighting coronavirus. Critics believe that TCRA objected to a report that criticised President John Magufuli for saying that churches should remain open on the basis that "coronavirus cannot survive in a church".
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-52214740
Writer: Dickens Olewe
Publication: BBC
Content type: Case Study
1st April 2020
The right to privacy is crucial to protect a couple’s equal rights within marriage.
The recent rise of spyware as an “off-the-shelf” product that anyone can purchase has been extremely worrying, as installing spyware on someone else’s phone means getting access to their contacts, their messages, their google searches, their location and more - all without them knowing.
Spyware is, increasingly, becoming another way for abusive spouses to control and monitor their partners. Nearly a third of…
Content type: News & Analysis
24th February 2020
In mid-2019, MI5 admitted, during a case brought by Liberty, that personal data was being held in “ungoverned spaces”. Much about these ‘ungoverned spaces’, and how they would effectively be “governed” in the future, remained unclear. At the moment, they are understood to be a ‘technical environment’ where personal data of unknown numbers of individuals was being ‘handled’. The use of ‘technical environment’ suggests something more than simply a compilation of a few datasets or databases.
The…
Content type: News & Analysis
15th January 2020
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: Report
24th June 2019
Like many others, PI were alarmed at recent reports that Facebook have been making mobile phone numbers (which users believed to be) provided for the express purpose of "two-factor authentication" (2FA) both searchable, and a target for advertising by default.
One of the myriad ways Facebook displays targeted adverts to users is through so-called "Custom Audiences". These "custom audiences" are lists of contact details, including phone numbers and email addresses, uploaded by advertisers.…
Content type: Explainer
28th May 2019
Could an app you have never even heard of put you at risk? This is what happened to Chloe (real name has been changed), an investigative journalist exposed by an app that her source was using.
Her source was using TrueCaller, an app that aims to identify phone numbers so users can filter out calls, even if it is from a number they have never encountered before. TrueCaller relies on users tagging numbers who are calling them. And when your number is tagged there is no way for you to know that…
Content type: Case Study
28th May 2019
Photo by Roger H. Goun
Chloe is an investigative journalist working for an international broadcast service; we will call the TV show she works for The Inquirer. She travels around the world to work with local journalists on uncovering stories that make the headlines: from human trafficking to drug cartels and government corruption. While her documentaries are watched by many and inspire change in the countries she works in, you would not know who Chloe is if we were to tell you her real name.…
Content type: Long Read
27th March 2019
(In order to click the hyperlinks in the explainer below, please download the pdf version at the bottom of the page).
Content type: Explainer graphic
10th March 2019
You can also read a more detailed explainer about social media intelligence (SOCMINT) here.
Content type: Report
5th March 2019
6 March 2019
Privacy International (PI) has written Facebook to express our concern and request urgent answers regarding its policy on the sharing of mobile phone numbers of its users.
Alarmingly, recent reports say that some of the phone numbers provided by users for the express purpose of two-factor authentication (2FA) as a way of securing their accounts are now made searchable across the platform by default.
PI is concerned that allowing such numbers to be searchable both undermines…
Content type: Explainer graphic
25th February 2019
You can also read a more detailed explainer about facial recognition cameras here.
Content type: Explainer graphic
15th February 2019
You can also read a more detailed explainer about IMSI catchers here.
Content type: Examples
9th February 2019
In July 2018, Facebook announced it was investigating whether the Boston-based company Crimson Hexagon had violated the company's policies on surveillance. Crimson Hexagon markets itself as offering "consumer insights". Its customers include a Russian non-profit with ties to the Kremlin, and multiple US government agencies. After pressure from civil liberties groups, Facebook put a policy in place in March 2017 barring the use of members' data for the purposes of government surveillance.…
Content type: Report
1st December 2018
In December 2018, the National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders-Kenya published a report analysing the needs and concerns of human rights defenders (HRD) in relation to privacy, data protection and communications surveillance.
A summary of their findings is below. Access the full report on their website.