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Content type: Examples
Spreading facial recognition technology - according to figures from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, government agencies in 78 countries use facial recognition systems - is changing the risk of participating in protests by making it impossible to count on being anonymous or in a group too large to arrest. In one example, police in Moscow reportedly use facial recognition to identify and preemptively arrest people who might be on their way to join protests. In other cases,…
Content type: Examples
Chinese students and newly graduated activists in London report that they frequently see middle-aged Chinese men at protests watching them without participating, report getting strange calls, and say their families have been threatened by local authorities in China. Experts say they may be experiencing an escalation of surveillance that previously was limited to photographs and monitoring. Many of activists are newcomers to protest and were unaware of these risks. There were more than 151,000…
Content type: Examples
The UK's political and cultural institutions are increasingly joining the police and private intelligence companies in tracking peaceful activists without transparency or accountability. The intelligence company Welund lists among its customers BP and many other oil and gas giants, as well as public authorities including the Greater London Authority. It provides them with a daily dashboard listing planned demonstrations, events, and protests that may be disruptive. https://www.…
Content type: Examples
Student protesters accused Harvard administrators of attempting to surveil and identify students participating in a vigil for 100-plus Palestinians who died under Israeli attack while awaiting humanitarian aid. Current Harvard policy prohibits classroom disruptions, and lowered tolerance for protest in general. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/3/4/protesters-accuse-harvard-surveillance/Publication: Harvard CrimsonWriter: Sally E. EdwardsPublication date: 2021-03-04
Content type: Examples
Section 702 of the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, due to expire in April 2024 unless renewed, is intended to allow intelligence agencies to surveil foreigners overseas but under the rubric of "foreign influence" or "foreign intelligence gathering" can easily be abused to surveil Americans at home in response to political leaders' current obsessions. Government documents showed in 2023 that the FBI has misused S702 to search Black Lives Matter protesters' communications between 2020…
Content type: Advocacy
In January 2024, the ILO published a report, Realizing Decent Work in the Platform Economy, following a decision by the ILO Governing Body that the 2025 and 2026 International Labour Conferences would discuss standard-setting on decent work in the platform economy. The report - and the new ILO standard in development - are of interest to Privacy International because of the impacts on workers' privacy and autonomy that arise from the growing use of invasive surveillance practices and…
Content type: Explainer
Behind every machine is a human person who makes the cogs in that machine turn - there's the developer who builds (codes) the machine, the human evaluators who assess the basic machine's performance, even the people who build the physical parts for the machine. In the case of large language models (LLMs) powering your AI systems, this 'human person' is the invisible data labellers from all over the world who are manually annotating datasets that train the machine to recognise what is the colour…
Content type: Explainer
IntroductionThe emergence of large language models (LLMs) in late 2022 has changed people’s understanding of, and interaction with, artificial intelligence (AI). New tools and products that use, or claim to use, AI can be found for almost every purpose – they can write you a novel, pretend to be your girlfriend, help you brush your teeth, take down criminals or predict the future. But LLMs and other similar forms of generative AI create risks – not just big theoretical existential ones – but…
Content type: Long Read
IntroductionFor years PI has been documenting the market dominance and associated power of Big Tech over the digital economy, and the threats this poses to our privacy and wider rights.The digital economy is characterised by a handful of Big Tech companies that have established and maintained dominance over the digital market through opaque and exploitative practices. Big Tech exploits the data of those who use their platforms in ways which interfere with our privacy and wider rights. In…
Content type: Long Read
Social media is now undeniably a significant part of many of our lives, in the UK and around the world. We use it to connect with others and share information in public and private ways. Governments and companies have, of course, taken note and built fortunes or extended their power by exploiting the digital information we generate. But should the power to use the information we share online be unlimited, especially for governments who increasingly use that information to make material…
Content type: Long Read
Table of contentsIntroductionWeighing the (potential) benefits with the risksPrivacy rights and the right to healthThe right to healthPrivacy, data-protection and health dataThe right to health in the digital contextWhy the drive for digitalImproved access to healthcarePatient empowerment and remote monitoringBut these same digital solutions carry magnified risks…More (and more connected) dataData leaks and breachesData sharing without informed consentProfiling and manipulationTools are not…
Content type: People
Tara is a Legal Officer at Privacy International. She works on legal advocacy and supports PI’s litigation efforts in the areas of surveillance, the authoritarian use of technology and social and economic justice. Tara was admitted as an attorney in South Africa in March 2018, and holds a Master of Laws (LLM), Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and undergraduate degrees in law and political science. Before joining PI, Tara worked as a human rights attorney in South Africa, specialising in information…
Content type: Advocacy
At PI we have been observing with concern the rapid expansion of technologies in educational settings, which has included a wide array of tools that allow the surveillance of students and academic staff, to the detriment of their privacy and academic freedom. We consider this upcoming report as an essential platform to examine the intricate interplay between academic freedom, freedom of expression, and surveillance conducted by both public and private entities through Education…
Content type: Advocacy
While PI recognises the threats posed by cybercrime, PI reiterates the need both for a narrow scope for the proposed Convention, focusing solely on core cyber-dependent crimes, as well as for effective safeguards throughout the entire treaty to ensure human rights are respected and protected, especially in the areas of privacy and freedom of expression. Throughout the negotiations most of proposals by Member States and other stakeholders aimed at restricting the scope of the treaty and…
Content type: Advocacy
On 18 October 2023, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR or Court) issued a historic judgment declaring the Republic of Colombia internationally responsible for human rights violations against several members of the human rights non-profit Colectivo de Abogados y Abogadas José Alvear Restrepo (CAJAR)and their relatives. This groundbreaking decision marks the first acknowledgment within the inter-American context of a state’s international responsibility for violating the right to…
Content type: News & Analysis
Is the AI hype fading? Consumer products with AI assistant are disappointing across the board, Tech CEOs are struggling to give examples of use cases to justify spending billions into Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and models training. Meanwhile, data protection concerns are still a far cry from having been addressed.
Yet, the believers remain. OpenAI's presentation of ChatGPT was reminiscent of the movie Her (with Scarlett Johannsen's voice even being replicated a la the movie), Google…
Content type: Examples
L3Harris is contracted by the U.S. Space Force to develop space surveillance information though a programme known as MOSSAIC (the Maintenance Of Space Situational Awareness Integrated Capabilities). The program is said to provide space surveillance information for military, civil and commercial users.https://www.satellitetoday.com/government-military/2024/04/19/us-space-force-awards-l3harris-contract-option-for-space-surveillance-program/Publication: ViaSatelliteWriter: Rachel Jewett
Content type: Examples
Israel based company, High Lander, is providing demos of its system, called Orion, to U.S. police departments, suggesting the drones can help in law enforcement, including by performing video surveillance, searching for people or vehicles using AI and thermal sensors. https://theintercept.com/2024/05/17/israel-orione-drone-us-police-louisiana/Publication: The InterceptWriter: Delaney Nolan
Content type: Long Read
Sports are a huge part of daily life for billions around the world, a fundamental aspect of the rich tapestry of the human experience.Attending a major sporting event can be a formative experience in someone’s life, as a place to share in a communal culture.Increasingly we have seen surveillance, and especially mass surveillance measures, being introduced at sports events impeding the enjoyment particularly of the right to privacy and right to participate in sporting life.When we saw that the…
Content type: News & Analysis
On 15 May 2024, a London Administrative Court handed down its judgment in the case of ADL & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department, just two months after another court judgment and a ruling of the UK's data protection authority (ICO). The four Claimants in this latest case (including asylum seekers and survivors of trafficking) were challenging the UK Home Office's policy of placing people released from immigration detention under 24/7 GPS surveillance - either by shackling them…
Content type: Long Read
IntroductionFor years PI has been exposing and advocating against the use of facial recognition technology (FRT) and the grave threats it poses to our rights. This highly invasive technology is paving the way to a dystopian, biometric surveillance state, where everyone is identified and tracked everywhere they go, in real time, as they move through public spaces during their everyday lives. Furthermore, this is taking place within a democratic vacuum, without any specific legislation pertaining…
Content type: Advocacy
The United Nations (UN) Committee on the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee) has published a damning "Report on follow-up to the inquiry concerning the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" which calls upon the United Kingdom (UK) to take action against the human rights risks posed by the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for automated decision-making in the social security system in order to decide who can receive benefits. Published in…
Content type: Examples
New rules rolled out by India's app-based home services platform Urban Company require its more than 52,000 workers to maintain ratings of a minimum of 4.7 (out of 5), accept 70% of job leads, and cancel only four jobs a month. The company says the rules are intended to improve customer experience and raise standards, and may increase its requirements to 80% acceptance and three cancellations. Workers who don't meet the requirements must attend online (free) or offline (fee-bearing) training,…
Content type: Examples
Workplace surveillance has become a reality in the US in every type of job from financial executives to radiologists to warehouse workers, tracking in detail how workers spend their time. Often, time spent on manual tasks does not register as working time, leading to lost pay or even lost jobs. Workers subjected to electronic surveillance report that they have lost autonomy and that the constant pressure of electronic micromanagement is demoralising, humiliating, and toxic. https://www.…
Content type: Examples
A summary of Karen Levy's 2023 book Data Driven, which studies the installation of electronic logging devices in the cabs of US truckers, removing much of their traditional autonomy. Nominally installed to improve safety, the devices actually are making trucking less safe by pushing experienced drivers out of the profession and removing the flexibility that allows truckers to respond to conditions on the ground. Strategies are needed to ensure that AI does not fundamentally reallocate burdens…
Content type: Examples
The Dutch data protection authority has fined Uber €10 million for failing to inform drivers how long it retains their data or how it secures it when sending it to countries outside the EEA, and hindering drivers' access to their data by making requests unnecessarily complicated. The fine follows a complaint filed by 170 French drivers with a human rights organization, which complained to the French data protection authority, which forwarded It to the Netherlands, where Uber has its European…
Content type: Examples
The Spanish data protection regulator AEPD has fined Glovo €550,000 for excessively surveilling delivery drivers and failing to protect their data from abuse by company personnel in other countries. The data includes details of each delivery, all communications exchanged with the platform, and reputation scores. The Spanish regulator was inspired to investigate after a 2020 warning from its Italian counterpart, which was investigating Glovo's Italian food delivery subsidiary, Foodinho. …
Content type: Examples
FullScreen Research claims that in the competitive German food delivery market, Lieferando uses automation to monitor its employees and that Wolt violates labour laws by paying couriers in cash and employing them illegally A former supervisor with Lieferando says that the system flags up abnormalities for a team of watching agents, who see each courier's exact location and are supposed to ask drivers the reason for delays. Lieferando denies that it illegally controls drivers'…
Content type: Examples
Former delivery driver Edrissa Manjang is pursuing a claim for harassment, indirect discrimination, and victimisation in UK courts, alleging that a racially-biased algorithm kicked him off Uber Eats' ride-sharing app. After Uber Eats supplied information that contradicted Manjang's original claims, the judge gave him leave to amend his complaint but refused him permission to use emails sent him during the litigation as evidence of harassment. Manjang, who is black and of African descent, says…
Content type: Examples
In response to a case brought by three Italian trade unions, a court in Palermo has ruled that the points system used by the Italian food delivery service Foodinho discriminates against disabled and older riders, as well as those with special family or personal circumstances. A subsidiary of Spain's Glovo Group, Foodinho's system awards higher scores to riders who complete more deliveries or are available at peak times; high scores give riders greater choice and better work opportunities. …