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News & Analysis

The Letters

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: privacy

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

Press release

Privacy International files complaints against seven companies for wide-scale and systematic infringements of data protection law

PRESS RELEASE: Privacy International files complaints against seven companies for wide-scale and systematic infringements of data protection law

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

Long Read

We “value” your privacy – (now allow us to track you across the internet)

I asked an online tracking company for all of my data and here's what I found

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

News & Analysis

Italy's Supreme Court decision limits hacking powers and applies safeguards

Privacy International notes a recent ruling issued by Italy’s Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione) that addresses the need to limit government hacking powers for surveillance purposes and articulates required safeguards when hacking is conducted as part of a criminal investigation. The ruling

Long Read

Fintech’s dirty little secret? Lenddo, Facebook and the challenge of identity

Photo Credit: Max Pixel The fintech sector, with its data-intensive approach to financial services, faces a looming problem. Scandals such as Cambridge Analytica have brought public awareness about abuses involving the use of personal data from Facebook and other sources. Many of these are the same

News & Analysis

What to remember when listening to big tech "embrace privacy"

Image Source On 10 October 2018, the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will convene a hearing titled “Consumer Data Privacy: Examining Lessons From the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act". The Senate will hear from

Long Read

Cyber Security Awareness Month: Privacy and Security Must Go Together

Since 2004, October has been designated National Cyber Security Awareness Month in the United States. Many other countries have followed suit, as part of the effort to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity, and how we can all work together to improve it. However, cyber security (or

News & Analysis

The Next Frontier of the Right to Privacy in the Digital Age

Image attribution: By Blue Diamond Gallery CC BY-SA 3.0. In March 2017, when the UN Human Rights Council requested the High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a report on the right to privacy in the digital age, including the responsibility of business enterprises, Cambridge Analytica was an

Long Read

Five ways your privacy is compromised without you realising

Photo credit: Pixabay This piece was originally published in iNews It seems that you can’t go anywhere online at the moment without being reassured that ‘we respect your privacy’ and being directed to a 2,000-word privacy policy. You probably just click ‘got it, thanks’ because who has the luxury to

Long Read

New U.K. Law Fails European Court Standards on Mass Interception Disclosed by Snowden

This piece was originally published in Just Security. Earlier this month, the European Court of Human Rights issued a major judgment in three consolidated cases challenging the U.K. government’s mass interception program, which was first revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013. That judgment finds

Long Read

Mass surveillance has no place in a free and democratic society

What the 2018 European Court Ruling Means for Mass Spying Around the World

Written jointly by Privacy International and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In a landmark decision earlier this month, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that one of the mass surveillance programs revealed by Edward Snowden violates the rights to privacy and freedom of expression

Long Read

Initial analysis of Indian Supreme Court decision on Aadhaar

Image attribution: By Legaleagle86 at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. In a long-anticipated judgment, the Indian Supreme Court has ruled that India's controversial identification system Aadhaar is Constitutional. They based their conclusion on notes that there are sufficient measures in place to protect

Long Read

We ask the Home Secretary why UK intelligence agencies have unlawfully analysed PI's data

The UK's domestic-facing intelligence agency, MI5, today admitted that it captured and read Privacy International's private data as part of its Bulk Communications Data (BCD) and Bulk Personal Datasets (BPD) programmes, which hoover up massive amounts of the public's data. In further startling legal

Press release

Press release: UK intelligence agency admits unlawfully spying on Privacy International

Thames House, Offices of MI5. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons MI5 collected Privacy International’s private data and examined it GCHQ, MI5, and MI6 unlawfully collected data relating to UK charity Privacy International Privacy International has written to the UK's Home Secretary demanding action

News & Analysis

The principles of data protection: not new and actually quite familiar

“The gathering and holding of personal information on computers, data banks, and other devices, whether by public authorities or private individuals or bodies, must be regulated by law.” - UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 16, 1988 Underpinning the obligations of those who process