News and Analysis

What do Honduras, Pakistan, and Switzerland have in common? They are all bound to respect and protect the right to privacy under Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. And in July 2017, they all also happened to be under the scrutiny of the UN Human Rights Committee

Privacy International (PI) has today written to the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs following further concerning reports about the export of internet surveillance equipment from the country. We are calling for the government to carry out a full re-assessment of the human rights risks associated

Photo Credit: MoD UK ‘Security’ in the policy world has practically no currency without a specific prefix. For example, we could discuss 'national' security as distinct from 'consumer' security or 'energy' security. ‘Cyber’ security is the new prefix on the policy block, and it is gradually forcing

The Privacy International Network recently submitted joint stakeholder reports for seven partner countries - India, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Brazil, the Philippines and Indonesia - as part of the 27th session of the Universal Periodic Review (1 to 12 May 2017). Communications surveillance was

The past few years have seen a huge rise in the number of attacks both active and passive, against organisations big and small. Attacks against organisations happen for a multitude of reasons: extortion via "ransomware", exfiltration of commercial secrets, or just "the lulz". While this can be

Image source: AFP Earlier this month, the Kenyan daily The Star reported that UK-based data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica had been quietly contracted by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s party in a bid to win himself a second term in office. State House officials were quick to deny the claims, while

Dear Minister Dr. Wolfgang Brandstetter, Minister Mag. Wolfgang Sobotka, Minister Dr.in Pamela Rendi-Wagner, MSs, Minister Mag. Hans Peter Doskozil, Privacy International is a United Kingdom-based non-governmental organization, which is dedicated to protecting the right to privacy around the world

This guest piece was written by Leandro Ucciferri of the Association for Civil Rights (Asociación por los Derechos Civiles). It does not necessarily reflect the views or position of Privacy International. We look at our smartphone first thing in the morning to check the weather, and our to-do list

Why would we ever let anyone hack anything, ever? Why are hacking tools that can patently be used for harm considered helpful? Let's try to address this in eight distinct points: 1) Ethical hacking is a counter proof to corporate claims of security. Companies make products and claim they are secure

Creative Commons Photo Credit: Source The financial services industry is eager to gather more and more data about our lives. Apart from mining the data they have historically collected such as credit history, they are looking to use our social media profiles to reach into our friendships and social

Dear Politicians, With elections coming up and quite a few cringe-worthy comments that have come from many of you and from all sides of the political spectrum, we figured it was time to have a chat about encryption. First, let’s say what you shouldn’t do: call for boycotts of companies because they