News and Analysis

N&A, Long Reads, Press Release

Press release

Privacy International Sends Warning Briefing and Anti-Surveillance Phone Pouch to Brexit Negotiators to Help Them Stay Secure

Please find attached a copy of the briefing along with promotional photographs with the briefing. Privacy International has today sent top EU and UK Brexit negotiators* a briefing on their vulnerability to potential surveillance by each other, and others. Brexit negotiations are to begin today. The

News & Analysis

Everything's on fire. Here's how we're trying put it out.

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

News & Analysis

Voter Profiling in the 2017 Kenyan Election

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

News & Analysis

Open Letter: Refrain From Introducing Measures To Legalise State Hacking In The Austrian “Security Package”

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

News & Analysis

The Identity We Can't Change

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

Long Read

DOJ Cross-Border Legislation: Meeting Human Rights Requirements from Both Sides of the Pond

This piece was originally published in Lawfare in May 2017. This post is part of a series written by participants of a conference at Georgia Tech in Surveillance, Privacy, and Data Across Borders: Trans-Atlantic Perspectives. Cross-border law enforcement demands have become increasingly important to

News & Analysis

In Defense of Offensive Hacking Tools

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

News & Analysis

Social Media Intelligence And Profiling In The Insurance Industry: It’s Not Only The Price You Pay That Will Be Affected

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

News & Analysis

Winning the debate on encryption — a 101 guide for politicians

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

Long Read

Cambridge Analytica Explained: Data and Elections

Disclaimer: This piece was written in April 2017. Since publishing, further information has come out about Cambridge Analytica and the company's involvement in elections. Recently, the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica has been the centre of tons of debate around the use of profiling and micro

News & Analysis

Walking The Privacy Tightrope Across The Atlantic

This week the United States Congress voted to strip away one of the country’s few safeguards of the right to privacy by repealing rules which would have limited internet service provider’s ability to use or share customers’ data without customers’ approval. Meanwhile, last week, 6,500 kilometers

News & Analysis

Is Your Car Connected?

For as long as automobiles have been around, manufacturers have been trying to find ways of putting more technology inside of cars, oftentimes sold as value-added services for their customers, whether that be 8-tracks of the 1960s and 1970s, the enhancement to security of central locking of the

News & Analysis

In Kenya, Communications Surveillance Is A Matter of Life and Death

On a hot day in Nairobi, our researcher is speaking to an officer of Kenya’s National Intelligence Service (NIS). The afternoon is wearing on and the conversation has turned to the presidential elections, taking place in August this year. He has just finished describing the NIS’ highly secret

Long Read

A Brief Guide: How To Talk About Privacy At the UN

This briefing highlights opportunities for NGOs to raise issues related to the right to privacy before some selected UN human rights bodies that have the mandate and the capacity to monitor and provide recommendations and redress. The briefing provides some examples based on Privacy International’s

Long Read

International Women's Day 2017: A PI Network Highlight Reel

In this special briefing for International Women’s Day 2017, we explore through the work of the Privacy International Network some areas of concern being addressed in relation to privacy, surveillance, women’s rights, and gender. Coding Rights demonstrates the important of generating and

Press release

Privacy International Reaction to Vault 7 Leaks

Privacy International Executive Director Dr Gus Hosein said: “If today’s leaks are authenticated, they demonstrate what we’ve long been warning about government hacking powers — that they can be extremely intrusive, have enormous security implications, and are not sufficiently regulated