News and Analysis

N&A, Long Reads, Press Release

News & Analysis

VMception

This post was written by PI Technologist Ed Geraghty. At the very heart of ThornSec’s design is that we assume our security will fail. There is nothing perfect on this earth (except kittens). The entire point is to fail well. For charities and NGOs that are fragile, poorly resourced, and often at

News & Analysis

Business As Usual? How Western Data Analytics Companies Are Peddling Fear In Fragile Democracies

This post was written by PI Policy Officer Lucy Purdon. In 1956, US Presidential hopeful Adlai Stevenson remarked that the hardest part of any political campaign is how to win without proving you are unworthy of winning. Political campaigning has always been a messy affair and now the online space

News & Analysis

What We Collect (And Why We Collect It)

This is a piece that we drafted in 2018 but is now outdated. We have updated it in and incorporated it into our 2021 privacy policy.

News & Analysis

Forthcoming research investigates whether biometric voter register was misappropriated for political campaigns in Kenya

This brief was written by the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology (CIPIT) of Strathmore University in Kenya. CIPIT is currently investigating how the privacy of Kenyan citizens was affected by the use of biometric data during the just concluded 2017 general and repeat elections.

Long Read

Texas Media Company Hired By Trump Created Kenyan President's Viral 'Anonymous' Attack Campaign Against Rival, New Investigation Reveals

The battle for Kenyan voters’ allegiance in the 2017 Presidential election was fought on social media and the blogosphere. Paid advertisements for two mysterious, anonymous sites in particular started to dominate Google searches for dozens of election-related terms in the months leading up to the

Long Read

Government Hacking and Surveillance: 10 Necessary Safeguards

Introduction Why We Are So Concerned about Government Hacking for Surveillance Scope of Our Safeguards 1. Legality 2. Security and Integrity of Systems 3. Necessity and Proportionality 4. Judicial Authorisation 5. Integrity of information 6. Notification 7. Destruction and Return of Data 8

Press release

Press Release: Texas Media Company Hired By Trump Is Behind Kenyan President's Viral 'Anonymous' Attack Campaign Against Rival, New Investigation Reveals

A new investigation published today by Privacy International reveals the role of an American data-based digital advertising company in the highly divisive online re-election campaign of Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta. In the run-up to Kenya's presidential election in August 2017, paid

News & Analysis

Biometrics in Kenya Demystified

Recently, a text from a local telecommunications company inquired whether its subscribers knew that they could now enroll their voice so they could access various services securely and conveniently. This added a further dynamic to the on-going debate in several quarters on the accelerated adoption

Press release

Press Release: New report shows how car rental companies are failing to protect drivers' information

Car rental companies and car-share schemes are failing to protect drivers' personal information

News & Analysis

You need two to tango: The responsibility of companies to respect privacy and free expression in the digital age

13 June 2016 " State capacity to conduct surveillance may depend on the extent to which business enterprises cooperate with or resist such surveillance” notes the Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression in his report on the role of the private sector to respect human rights in the digital age

News & Analysis

Open NGO Letter to EU Member States and Institutions Regarding the Export of Surveillance Equipment

Following the alarming evidence that EU-made electronic surveillance equipment is still being exported to authoritarian countries around the world, we strongly urge all EU member states and institutions to respect their human rights obligations and call on them to prioritise long overdue EU reforms

News & Analysis

As Senate prepares to discuss PEC Bill, civil society reiterates their concern

20 June 2016 Privacy International joins DRF and A19 in reiterating our serious concerns about the proposed Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill which is currently being discussed in the Senate in Pakistan. While we note that the Bill adopted by the National Assembly in April 2016 includes some

News & Analysis

New “Shield”, Old Problems

7 July 2016 It has been said is that we pay for free services with our personal data. Now, the Privacy Shield exponentially expands this truth and we are paying for the cost of U.S. political dysfunction combined with EU complacency with our privacy. More than four months after the first EU-US

News & Analysis

There’s still time to stop the surveillance society

31 October 2016 This piece originally appeared in The Guardian here . This government’s “neither confirm nor deny” mantra over the extent of its surveillance powers has been replaced with a new one: “Never apologise, never explain.” On Monday, the tribunal tasked with hearing complaints against our

News & Analysis

Chilean Government To Subject Citizens To American Surveillance Apparatus

This comment by Privacy International Executive Director Gus Hosein ran in Ciper Chile on 19 May, 2014 The economic benefits of being included in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) with the US are remarkable. The ease of travel allows for the exchange of tourism between the countries, and other new

News & Analysis

There's No Good Reason for Spy Agencies to Snoop on Humanitarian Groups

The following article written by Carly Nyst, Privacy International's Legal Director, originially appeared on the Future Tense blog on Slate: The news that the CIA is no longer using vaccination programs as a front for spying operations may come as a relief to many humanitarian workers. Yet their