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Content type: Case Study
Introduction
Online, and increasingly offline, companies gather data about us that determine what advertisements we see; this, in turn, affects the opportunities in our lives. The ads we see online, whether we are invited for a job interview, or whether we qualify for benefits is decided by opaque systems that rely on highly granular data. More often than not, such exploitation of data facilitates and exacerbates already existing inequalities in societies – without us knowing that it occurs.…
Content type: Long Read
This piece was originally published in Just Security in August 2017
We recently published an analysis in Lawfare of the United Kingdom’s surveillance framework as it relates to the proposed U.S.-U.K. agreement for cross-border law enforcement data requests. Implementing the U.S.-U.K. agreement is subject to passage of draft legislation proposed by the Justice Department to Congress in July 2016 (“U.S. DOJ legislation”), which will set standards that approved partners like the U.K.…
Content type: News & Analysis
What do Honduras, Pakistan, and Switzerland have in common? They are all bound to respect and protect the right to privacy under Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. And in July 2017, they all also happened to be under the scrutiny of the UN Human Rights Committee, which found the countries’ human rights record wanting in many respects, including the scope of their surveillance legislation.
Intelligence sharing
Reviewing Pakistan, the Committee…
Content type: Long Read
This piece was originally published in Lawfare in July 2017.
The United Kingdom has been a key partner in the United States’ efforts to reform the process that law enforcement officials use to make cross-border requests for data. These efforts address both foreign governments’ requests for data stored in the U.S. and reciprocal requests by the U.S. government for data stored abroad. As part of these efforts, the U.S. and the U.K. have negotiated a draft bilateral agreement (“U…
Content type: News & Analysis
Photo Credit: MoD UK
‘Security’ in the policy world has practically no currency without a specific prefix. For example, we could discuss 'national' security as distinct from 'consumer' security or 'energy' security. ‘Cyber’ security is the new prefix on the policy block, and it is gradually forcing a rethink on what it means to be secure in a modern society. In the course of Privacy International’s work globally, we have observed that many governments frame cyber security as national security…
Content type: Long Read
6 July 2017
Full briefing: UK-US Intelligence Sharing Arrangements
Urgent transparency is needed regarding the UK’s intelligence sharing arrangements with the United States, which allows UK and US agencies to share, by default, any raw intelligence and methods and techniques related to the acquisition of such intelligence. In a recent YouGov poll, three quarters of Britons said that they want the UK Government to tell the public what safeguards govern these arrangements. Privacy…
Content type: Long Read
In January 2017, Kenya’s information and communication technology regulator, the Communications Authority of Kenya, announced that it was spending over 2 billion shillings (around 14 million USD) on new initiatives to monitor Kenyans’ communications and regulate their communications devices. The press lit up with claims of spying, and members of Kenya’s ICT community vowed to reject the initiatives as violating Kenyans’ constitutional rights, including the right to privacy (Article 31…
Content type: News & Analysis
The Privacy International Network recently submitted joint stakeholder reports for seven partner countries - India, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Brazil, the Philippines and Indonesia - as part of the 27th session of the Universal Periodic Review (1 to 12 May 2017).
Communications surveillance was a major area of concern, as we observed that these policies and practices remain largely opaque, complex and vague. In…
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: News & Analysis
The past few years have seen a huge rise in the number of attacks both active and passive, against organisations big and small. Attacks against organisations happen for a multitude of reasons: extortion via "ransomware", exfiltration of commercial secrets, or just "the lulz". While this can be crippling to a commercial business, it can potentially be devastating to an NGO, especially those which work to hold powerful institutions to account. The types of information held by such NGOs could…
Content type: News & Analysis
Image source: AFP
Earlier this month, the Kenyan daily The Star reported that UK-based data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica had been quietly contracted by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s party in a bid to win himself a second term in office. State House officials were quick to deny the claims, while the company itself issued no comment.
Cambridge Analytica has exploded onto the scene following revelations that its psychometric profiling techniques were used and reportedly played a role in…
Content type: News & Analysis
Dear Minister Dr. Wolfgang Brandstetter, Minister Mag. Wolfgang Sobotka, Minister Dr.in Pamela Rendi-Wagner, MSs, Minister Mag. Hans Peter Doskozil,
Privacy International is a United Kingdom-based non-governmental organization, which is dedicated to protecting the right to privacy around the world. Privacy International is committed to ensuring that government surveillance complies with the rule of law and the international human rights framework. As part of this commitment, Privacy…
Content type: News & Analysis
This guest piece was written by Leandro Ucciferri of the Association for Civil Rights (Asociación por los Derechos Civiles). It does not necessarily reflect the views or position of Privacy International.
We look at our smartphone first thing in the morning to check the weather, and our to-do list for the day. During breakfast, we read the news and learn about what is going on in the rest of the world. In our commute to work or college, we scroll through our social media feeds…
Content type: Long Read
This piece was originally published in Lawfare in May 2017.
This post is part of a series written by participants of a conference at Georgia Tech in Surveillance, Privacy, and Data Across Borders: Trans-Atlantic Perspectives.
Cross-border law enforcement demands have become increasingly important to law enforcement in the digital age. Digital evidence in one jurisdiction—such as the United States—is often necessary to investigate a crime that has effects in another jurisdiction…
Content type: News & Analysis
Why would we ever let anyone hack anything, ever? Why are hacking tools that can patently be used for harm considered helpful? Let's try to address this in eight distinct points:
1) Ethical hacking is a counter proof to corporate claims of security.
Companies make products and claim they are secure, or privacy preserving. An ethical hack shows they are not. Ethical hackers produce counter-proofs to government or corporate claims of security, and thus defend us, piece by tiny…
Content type: News & Analysis
Creative Commons Photo Credit: Source
The financial services industry is eager to gather more and more data about our lives. Apart from mining the data they have historically collected such as credit history, they are looking to use our social media profiles to reach into our friendships and social interactions. They are using these data in new and unexpected ways, including personality profiling to determine the risk of lending to you, and thus the price you will pay.
Firstcarquote, a…
Content type: Long Read
Disclaimer: This piece was written in April 2017. Since publishing, further information has come out about Cambridge Analytica and the company's involvement in elections.
Recently, the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica has been the centre of tons of debate around the use of profiling and micro-targeting in political elections. We’ve written this analysis to explain what it all means, and the consequences of becoming predictable to companies and political campaigns.
What does…
Content type: Advocacy
Update
Subsequent to our letter of January 2017 to the Italian export authorities expressing our belief that the export of an internet network surveillance system to Egypt poses a clear risk to human rights, the Ministry of Economic Development has confirmed in a press release that the authorisation has been revoked.
While the decision is to be welcomed, a feature documentary broadcast yesterday on Al-Jazeera shows the severity of the surveillance industry’s threat to privacy and…
Content type: News & Analysis
This week the United States Congress voted to strip away one of the country’s few safeguards of the right to privacy by repealing rules which would have limited internet service provider’s ability to use or share customers’ data without customers’ approval.
Meanwhile, last week, 6,500 kilometers away in Geneva, the United Nations Human Rights Council called on states to strengthen customers’ control over their data and develop legislation to address harm from the sale or corporate sharing of…
Content type: Advocacy
Privacy International's submission on the right to privacy in Thailand, Human Rights Committee, 119th Session.
In our assessment to the Committee, national legislation governing surveillance is inadequate, unclear as to the powers, scope and capacity of state surveillance activities and thus it falls short of the required human rights standards to safeguard individuals from unlawful interference to the right to privacy.
Content type: News & Analysis
On a hot day in Nairobi, our researcher is speaking to an officer of Kenya’s National Intelligence Service (NIS). The afternoon is wearing on and the conversation has turned to the presidential elections, taking place in August this year. He has just finished describing the NIS’ highly secret surveillance powers and the disturbing ways in which these powers are deployed.
“It is what you might call ‘acceptable deaths,’” he states about the misuse of communications surveillance powers. “People…
Content type: State of Privacy
Introduction
Acknowledgment
The State of Surveillance in Thailand is the result of a collaboration by Privacy International and Thai Netizen Network.
Right to Privacy
The constitution
Thailand experienced a coup d'etat in May 2014. According to Mishari Muqbil and Arthit Suriyawongkul, “their [the junta's] modus operandi seems to be the direct command of ministries and semi-governmental organisations to carry out tasks irrespective of existing legislation.”
Following…
Content type: Press release
Privacy International Executive Director Dr Gus Hosein said:
“If today’s leaks are authenticated, they demonstrate what we’ve long been warning about government hacking powers — that they can be extremely intrusive, have enormous security implications, and are not sufficiently regulated. Insufficient security protections in the growing amount of devices connected to the internet or so-called “smart” devices, such as Samsung Smart TVs, only compound the problem, giving governments easier…
Content type: News & Analysis
This guest piece was written by Elonnai Hickok, Amber Sinha and Vanya Rakesh of the Centre for Internet and Society. It does not necessarily reflect the views or position of Privacy International.
In 2009, the Government of India set up the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) as an attached office of the erstwhile Planning Commission of India via an executive order. The mandate of the UIDAI was to assign a 12-digit unique identification (UID) number (…
Content type: Long Read
Introduction
A growing number of governments around the world are embracing hacking to facilitate their surveillance activities. Yet hacking presents unique and grave threats to our privacy and security. It is far more intrusive than any other surveillance technique, capable of accessing information sufficient to build a detailed profile of a person, as well as altering or deleting that information. At the same time, hacking not only undermines the security of targeted systems, but also has…
Content type: Long Read
This piece was orignally published in Slate in February 2017
In 2015, the FBI obtained a warrant to hack the devices of every visitor to a child pornography website. On the basis of this single warrant, the FBI ultimately hacked more than 8,700 computers, resulting in a wave of federal prosecutions. The vast majority of these devices—over 83 percent—were located outside the United States, in more than 100 different countries. Now, we are in the midst of the first cases…
Content type: News & Analysis
In our latest report “Who’s that knocking at my door? Understanding surveillance in Thailand”, we highlighted various methods of surveillance that the Thai Government employs. Included in these methods was the finding that Microsoft was the only technology company which by default trusts the Thai Government’s root certificate. Root certificates ensure the validity of a website, and protect users from being tricked into visiting a fake, insecure website. Most technology companies including Apple…
Content type: Report
Privacy International’s investigation contains evidence of the Syrian government’s ambitious plans and projects to monitor the national communications infrastructure, the technical details of which are revealed for the first time. Hundreds of original documents also highlight surveillance trade in this region leading up to and during the Arab Spring, which involved companies from around the world.
Content type: News & Analysis
This piece originally appeared in the Responsible Data Forum.
Would you mind if, every time you post a comment on Twitter, Facebook or another social media platform, the police logged it? I mean, it’s public — surely it’s fair game?
If you think that’s OK, then maybe it’s also OK for a police officer to follow you when you walk down a busy street. That’s also public, right?
Clearly, definitions of public and private become very problematic when you are communicating with potentially…
Content type: Press release
Privacy International has today published an investigation, which sheds light on the shady deals that built Syria’s surveillance state and the role Western companies have played in its construction. The investigation also shows how Western surveillance companies seek to exploit loopholes to do business with repressive states.
Key points:
Technical specifications acquired by Privacy International reveal the Syrian government’s ambitious mass surveillance projects, including a nationwide…