News and Analysis

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Press release

Press statement: Privacy International thanks Edward Snowden for his courageous actions five years ago today

On the five year anniversary of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden leaking a massive trove of classified information that has since transformed our understanding of government mass surveillance, Dr Gus Hosein, Executive Director of Privacy International said: “Is it enough for your government to tell

News & Analysis

Between Scylla and Charybdis – the fate of the e-privacy regulation

We found the image here. As the hype around the EU General Data Protection Regulation’s entry into force begins to die down, confidentiality of digital communications in Europe is facing a new challenge. On one side, companies are lobbying to prevent the finalisation of the proposal for a new e

Long Read

Depiction of an earth globe with data around

Why and how GDPR applies to companies globally

The European Union's new data privacy law (General Data Protection Regulation, better known as GDPR) takes effect today May 25th, 2018, after a two-year transition period. Despite some companies appearing to believe otherwise, and many articles misrepresenting its contents, the GDPR will have a

Long Read

How do data companies get our data?

We found the image here. Open a Russian Matryoshka doll and you will find a smaller doll inside. Ask a large data company such as Acxiom and Oracle where they get their data from, and the answer will be from smaller data companies. Data companies – a catch all term for data brokers, advertisers

Press release

Privacy International launches campaign to investigate range of data companies that facilitate mass data exploitation

On the day that GDPR comes into force, PI has launched a campaign investigating a range of data companies that make up a largely hidden data ecosystem. This hidden data ecosystem is comprised of thousands of non-consumer facing data companies - such as Acxiom, Criteo, Quantcast - that amass and

Long Read

Why and how GDPR applies to people globally

Privacy and data protection are fundamental rights. When respected they help improve trust and reduce power imbalances. Individuals should have rights over their personal data, regardless of who holds or processes it, and effective ways to enforce those rights, through independent bodies. While not

Press release

If Companies Can Protect User Data in Europe, They Can Protect It Everywhere

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. companies should adopt the same data protection rules that are poised to go into effect in the European Union on May 25, Public Citizen, the Center for Digital Democracy and Privacy International said today. In a sign-on letter , 28 groups a re calling on some of the world’s

Press release

PI statement on adoption of the UK's Data Protection Act

Tomaso Falchetta, PI's Head of Advocacy and Policy team said: "The adoption of the Data Protection Act represents an important reform which strengthens the rights of individuals and increases obligations for the industry. The Act opens the way for the application of the EU General Data Protection

Press release

Privacy International's landmark challenge against UK Government hacking will proceed to the Supreme Court

In a remarkable development in Privacy International's four year legal battle against the UK Government's powers to hack phones and computers on a massive scale, the UK Supreme Court has agreed to hear the London-based charity's case in December 2018. Privacy International's case stems from a

News & Analysis

#efail and PGP - What should I do?

We found the above image here. Background Email is hard to secure. For years we've been trying to build security on top of email, such as through technologies like Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) and the open source implementation: GnuPG (GPG). What happened In the past 48 hours, there have been very

Press release

Privacy International asks major UK political parties to commit to not using legal loophole to target voters in forthcoming elections

Today, as the Data Protection Bill reaches its final stages, Privacy International has written to the leaders of the main UK political parties asking for public commitment to not use the exemption provided in the Bill to target voters - both online and offline - in all local and national forthcoming

News & Analysis

The Right to Privacy in Colombia - UPR 30 Factsheet

In the lead-up to the 30th session of the Universal Periodic Review which took place on 10 May 2018, Fundación Karisma, a partner organisation in the Privacy International Network, joined a coalition of civil society groups in Colombia to raise more awareness about the country's human rights record

Long Read

Telegram from Russia: compliance, & complicity in the Russian government’s attack on privacy

Telegram from Russia: compliance and complicity in the Russian government’s attack on privacy

If you operate an internet company in Russia, you aren’t necessarily surprised to one day open the door to someone, grasping in one hand a bundle of wires and in the other a letter from a government agency demanding access to your servers, with a black box wedged under one arm. Internet companies in

Long Read

Why should companies like Facebook commit to applying GDPR globally?

Hasn't Facebook said it would give European data protection to all of their users? Yes, but only in very vague language. In an initial reaction to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Mark Zuckerberg declared that Facebook would apply the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) “in spirit” to their

Press release

It’s time for the Prime Minister to fix shockingly lax intelligence sharing arrangements with other governments

Privacy International (PI) has today sent a detailed report and list of questions to the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, following her admission that failures in the UK system governing intelligence sharing with international partners helped facilitate the detention, retention and “appalling

News & Analysis

Police Scotland forced to give evidence to Scottish Parliament on intrusive mobile phone extraction technology following Privacy International's report

Following on from the publication of our ‘Digital Stop and Search’ report last month, into the use of intrusive technology that enables officers to download all of the data stored on our mobile phones, we are pleased that Scotland's Justice Sub-Committee on Policing have been scrutinising Police