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Content type: Examples
According to research conducted by Ronan Chardonneau, a French associate professor of digital marketing at Angers University, none of the websites of the eleven candidates' in the 2017 French presidential elections, that he looked into respected CNIL's directives regarding information that should be available on the website and consent requirements for data collection. According to this research, nine of the candidates used Google Analytics, without activating the option to anonymize data…
Content type: Examples
A company called Liegey Muller Pons (LMP) offers data analysis tools to help candidates and political parties improve their political campaign strategy. The three founders of the company were member's of former President François Hollande's 2012 campaign team. LMP was then hired by current President Emmanuel Macron during his Grande Marche campaign before the elections and during the presidential elections by the Socialist Party candidate Benoît Hamon. LMP offers data analysis that allows…
Content type: Examples
NationBuilder is an American political campaigning software company, which offers a fully integrated suite of tools for the organization of a campaign, and outreach through e-mail, telephone, social media, and traditional door-to-door campaigning. Many candidates in the 2017 French presidential elections were reported as using their services. Among others, the company offers a functionality called 'match'. When users provide their email address on a campaign's website, 'match' allows the…
Content type: Examples
During the primary elections in November 2016, the former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, reportedly used an app, called Knockin, that made it possible to identify and geolocate supporters for door-to-door campaigning. Based on a report by the French Radio RMC, the app would harvest public data about anyone that liked a page or a post that the candidate put on his campaign page in order to find the supporter's address. Door-to-door volunteers were then able to see on the app the address…
Content type: Long Read
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Spain is holding a national general election on April 28 (its third in four years). Four weeks later Spaniards will again go to the polls to vote in the European Parliament elections. At Privacy International we are working to investigate and challenge the exploitation of people’s data in the electoral cycle including in political campaigns. This includes looking at the legal frameworks governing the use of data by political parties and their…
Content type: Examples
In 2014, when the the far-right party of French politician Marine Le Pen needed cash, the loan of €9.4 million came from First Czech-Russian Bank, which was founded in the early 2000s as a joint venture between a Czech state bank and a Russian lender and went on to come under the personal ownership of Russian financier Roman Popov and obtain a European license via a subsidiary in the Czech Republic. Two and a half months after the Le Pen loan was signed, a Mediapart investigative journalist…
Content type: Examples
In November 2018, the Spanish senate approved 220-21 an online data protection law intended to ensure compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation with an added amendment that allowed political parties to use personal data obtained from web pages and other publicly accessible sources for political purposes during campaign periods. Spain's Platform for the Defence of Freedom of Information criticised the law's potential to allow parties to create ideological profiles and emulate the…
Content type: News & Analysis
At Privacy International, we talk about: “the world being on fire.”We say it to talk about the recurring threats to our democracies, the elections of authoritarian leaders, the current political climate… Or the actual climate. More often than not, we use it to talk about the (lack of) security in the design and implementation of computer systems.
But there is another kind of fire. The fourth wave of feminism – the one that contributed to the protests following the 2012 gang rape of…
Content type: Long Read
During the last World Economic Forum in Davos, the CEO of Microsoft joined the chorus of voices calling for new global privacy rules, saying the following in regard to the new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):
“My own point of view is that it's a fantastic start in treating privacy as a human right. I hope that in the United States we do something similar, and that the world converges on a common standard."
We have come a long way. From tech companies fighting and…
Content type: State of Privacy
Table of contents
Introduction
Right to Privacy
Communication Surveillance
Data Protection
Identification Schemes
Policies and Sectoral Initiatives
Introduction
Acknowledgement
The State of Privacy in Paraguay is the result of an ongoing collaboration by Privacy International and TEDIC in Paraguay.
Key privacy facts
1. Constitutional privacy protection: The constitution does not mention the word privacy but protects private life under the "right to intimacy."
2. Data protection…
Content type: State of Privacy
Table of contents
Introduction
Right to Privacy
Data Protection
Identification Schemes
Policies and Sectoral Initiatives
Introduction
Acknowledgment
The State of Privacy in Pakistan is the result of an ongoing collaboration by Privacy International and the Digital Rights Foundation.
Between 2014-2016, Bytes for All contributed to previous versions of the 'Data Protection' sections of this briefing.
Key Privacy Facts
1. Constitutional privacy protections: Article 14(1) of…
Content type: State of Privacy
Table of contents
Introduction
Right to Privacy
Communication Surveillance
Data Protection
Identification Schemes
Policies and Sectoral Initiatives
Introduction
Acknowledgment
The State of Surveillance in Morocco is the result of an ongoing collaboration by Privacy International and its partners.
Key privacy facts
1. Constitutional privacy protection: The constitution contains an explicit protection of the right to privacy.
2. Data protection law: There is a data…
Content type: State of Privacy
Table of contents
Introduction
Right to Privacy
Communication Surveillance
Data Protection
Identification Schemes
Policies and Sectoral Initiatives
Introduction
Acknowledgement
The State of Privacy in India is the result of an ongoing collaboration by Privacy International and the Centre for Internet & Society.
Key Privacy Facts
1. Constitutional privacy protections: In 2017, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that the Indian constitution guarantees a right to privacy.
2. Data…
Content type: State of Privacy
Table of contents
Introduction
Right to Privacy
Communication Surveillance
Data Protection
Identification Schemes
Policies and Sectoral Initiatives
Introduction
Acknowledgement
The State of Privacy in Argentina is the result of an ongoing collaboration by Privacy International and Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC).
Key Privacy Facts
1. Constitutional privacy protections: While Argentina's constitution does not mention the word 'privacy', Section 19 has been taken by the…
Content type: News & Analysis
We found this image here.
In order for GDPR to be effective at protecting people's data, it must be implemented and enforced. Therefore, we are pleased to see that CNIL has taken action and issued Google a fine of €50 million based on complaints by NOYB and La Quadrature Du Net in May 2018. Despite numerous statements by Google that it takes the protection of people's data seriously, the decision demonstrates that they have a long way to go and that regulators will take action to hold…
Content type: Examples
In 2018, the Paris prosecutor's office opened a preliminary inquiry after the lawyer Pierre Farge accused a Bercy specialist intelligence branch of the tax authorities of hacking his firm's database to access information covered by professional confidentiality. The case serves to illustrate the difficulties of launching such a challenge in France, and also the functioning of the tax administration even after the passage of a 2017 law protecting whistleblowers.
https://www.lelanceur.fr/…
Content type: Examples
A 2016 Privacy International report on Syrian state surveillance found that between 2007 and 2012 the Assad regime spent millions of dollars on building a nationwide communications monitoring system. By 2012, this surveillance capability helped the Syrian government target and murder journalists, including American Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Rémi Ochlik in 2012, both covering the war. In 2018, the Colvin family filed a video of the journalists' final moments…
Content type: News & Analysis
Email addresses
Acxiom: [email protected]
Criteo: [email protected]
Equifax: [email protected]
Experian: [email protected]
Oracle: https://oracle.ethicspointvp.com/custom/oracle/dp/en/form_data.asp
Quantcast: [email protected] cc: [email protected]
Tapad: [email protected]
Letter for Acxiom and Oracle
subject line: Right to Erasure Request
I am concerned your company exploits my data.
In accordance with my right[s] under the General Data…
Content type: News & Analysis
Our team wanted to see how data companies that are not used to being in the public spotlight would respond to people exercising their data rights. You have the right under the EU General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") to demand that companies operating in the European Union (either because they are based here or target their products or services to individuals in the EU) delete your data within one month. We wrote to seven companies and requested that they delete our data, and we've made…
Content type: Press release
Today, Privacy International has filed complaints against seven data brokers (Acxiom, Oracle), ad-tech companies (Criteo, Quantcast, Tapad), and credit referencing agencies (Equifax, Experian) with data protection authorities in France, Ireland, and the UK. Privacy International urges the data protection authorities to investigate these companies and to protect individuals from the mass exploitation of their data.
Our complaints target companies that, despite exploiting the data of millions of…
Content type: Advocacy
Today, Privacy International has filed complaints against seven data brokers (Acxiom, Oracle), ad-tech companies (Criteo, Quantcast, Tapad), and credit referencing agencies (Equifax, Experian) with data protection authorities in France, Ireland, and the UK.
It’s been more than five months since the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect. Fundamentally, the GDPR strengthens rights of individuals with regard to the protection of their data, imposes more…
Content type: Advocacy
Today, Privacy International has filed complaints against seven data brokers (Acxiom, Oracle), ad-tech companies (Criteo, Quantcast, Tapad), and credit referencing agencies (Equifax, Experian) with data protection authorities in France, Ireland, and the UK.
It’s been more than five months since the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect. Fundamentally, the GDPR strengthens rights of individuals with regard to the protection of their data, imposes more…
Content type: Long Read
It’s 15:10 pm on April 18, 2018. I’m in the Privacy International office, reading a news story on the use of facial recognition in Thailand. On April 20, at 21:10, I clicked on a CNN Money Exclusive on my phone. At 11:45 on May 11, 2018, I read a story on USA Today about Facebook knowing when teen users are feeling insecure.
How do I know all of this? Because I asked an advertising company called Quantcast for all of the data they have about me.
Most people will have never heard of…
Content type: Long Read
The European Court of Human Rights ruled today that the UK government's mass interception program violates the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. The Court held that the program "is incapable of keeping the 'interference' to what is 'necessary in a democratic society'". This finding is an important victory for human rights and the rule of law. Below, we break down the key parts of the decision.
The Court's ruling comes after a five-year battle against two UK mass surveillance…
Content type: Long Read
Privacy International’s new report shows how countries with powerful security agencies are training, equipping, and directly financing foreign surveillance agencies. Driven by advances in technology, increased surveillance is both powered by and empowering rising authoritarianism globally, as well as attacks on democracy, peoples’ rights, and the rule of law.To ensure that surveillance powers used by governments are used to protect rather than endanger people, it is essential that the public,…
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: Examples
In 2012 the US Consumer Watchdog advocacy group filed a complaint against Google alleging that the company had violated its 2011 consent decree with the US Federal Trade Commission in the case about Google Buzz. The complaint was based on February 2012 revelations that the site was failing to honour do-not-track settings in Apple's Safari web browser. The browser itself was set by default to refuse to accept third-party cookies, as these are often used to track users across the web. Google's…