News and Analysis

N&A, Long Reads, Press Release

Long Read

How the UK Conservative Leadership Race is Latest Example of Political Data Exploitation

The UK public, regulators, and parliamentarians have all expressed concern about the wide use of third-party data by all political parties in the UK and its impact on privacy and democracy. In the week the remaining six candidates to be the UK’s next Prime Minister are reduced to two, Privacy

Long Read

Neighbourhood Watched: How to oppose police surveillance in your local community

Join our campaign with Liberty and write to your local Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC). Your PCC works on your behalf to hold your local police force to account, so you can share your concerns about police spying tech with them. You can download our new campaign pack (pdf link at the bottom of

Long Read

Timeline of SIM Card Registration Laws

IMAGE SOURCE: "My Phone Bought This" by oliver t is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. LAST UPDATE: 16th May 2022. Mandatory SIM card registration laws require people to provide personal information, including a valid ID or even their biometrics, as a condition for purchasing or activating a SIM card

News & Analysis

A Hack Job? BT Responds to Report that Claims it Develops Malware for the GCHQ

One of the UK’s largest telecommunications operators, BT, has said to Privacy International that a report claiming it “co-produces malware” with a surveillance company for the GCHQ is inaccurate – but hasn’t said why or given any more details. The accusation was made by C5IS – a shadowy online

Long Read

Join our campaign: tell social media companies to draw a line at the border!

When you go abroad, you expect to show your passport right? But what if immigration authorities wanted access to your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts before they let you enter a country? What if they wanted to vet you based on your updates, photos, likes, retweets and even your DMs? We

News & Analysis

Ghosts in Your Machine: Spooks Want Secret Access to Encrypted Messages

Privacy International has joined a global coalition of privacy campaigners, tech companies, and technology experts to respond to proposals by British intelligence chiefs aimed at allowing them access to encrypted messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Signal. If implemented, the proposals would allow

News & Analysis

ICE is Paying Millions to Surveillance Company to Spy on People’s Communications

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency at the centre of carrying out President Trump’s “zero tolerance” approach to immigration enforcement and family separation, has for years been contracting a US surveillance company to intercept peoples’ communications across the United States

Long Read

The ad-supported internet is broken, inefficient and a privacy nightmare. Let’s fix it!

Like millions of other people, you use messaging apps, social media, share, read and watch content on your phone or computer. If that’s the case then hundreds of AdTech companies collect and exchange your data every single day. AdTech, a short form of advertisement technology, is a catch-all term

Long Read

Marketed, micro-targeted and manipulated card

Steps you can take to minimise the political ads you see online

OPTION 1 - LIMIT TARGETED ADVERTISING A simple step you can take is turning on strong (as possible) privacy settings on the social media platforms you use. Social media platforms play a key role in targeting ads at you – and they facilitate the use of your data in ways that you probably wouldn’t

Key Resources

Data Exploitation in the Ukrainian elections

Ukraine held Presidential elections in April 2019. In the run up to the election, there was much debate on the role of Facebook.

Key Resources

Data Exploitation in the German Elections

In the lead up to the 2017 German federal elections, there was much debate about the benefits and dangers of data analytics for political purposes. There were some controversies concerning the use of data and the lack of information provided by political parties also raised concerns.

Key Resources

Data Exploitation in the French Elections

In the run up to the French presidential election of 2017, political parties increasingly used data-driven targeting techniques and companies to manage their campaigns. Here are some examples.

Key Resources

Data Exploitation in the Italian Elections

Political campaigns, debate and engagement has become increasingly digitalised in Italy. Here are some examples of concerns this has raised.

Long Read

Tech companies are trying to redefine privacy - what's missing is real competition on privacy

CEOs of the big tech companies have all recently discovered the value of privacy . On Tuesday, 30 April 2019, Mark Zuckerberg, announced his future plans to make Facebook a "privacy-focused social platform" . This was followed by Google's Sundar Pichai demand that “ privacy must be equally available

News & Analysis

Push this button for evidence

We look at the recently published report on forensic science in the UK , highlight concerns about police not understanding new tech used to extract data from mobile phones; the risk of making incorrect inferences and the general lack of understanding about the capabilities of these tools. The

News & Analysis

Cloud Storage App ‘Ever’ Has Been Weaponising Peoples’ Photos

Photo by Mike MacKenzie (via www.vpnsrus.com) Ever, a cloud storage app, is an example of how facial recognition technology can be developed in ways people do not expect and can risk amplifying discrimination. Ever is a cloud storage app that brands itself as “helping you capture and rediscover your