News and Analysis

This guest piece was written by Jane Duncan of the Right2Know Campaign. It does not necessarily reflect the views or position of Privacy International. On 23rd March the United Nations Human Rights Committee released its assessment on South Africa’s compliance with the International Covenant on

This week the Mexican Supreme Court will issue its judgement on the country’s data retention. It will decide on an injunction against the provisions of the the Federal Telecommunications Act known as the ‘Ley Telecom’. The Act requires all telephone companies and internet service providers to retain

Macedonia's capital Skopje is bracing itself for another night of protests and clashes after the interim President announced on Tuesday that there will be an amnesty for everyone under investigation in a formal probe into illegal wiretapping. The investigation into the wiretapping scandal, which was

Image source This is a guest post by Zoë Blackler . If you want to know how the UK came to be the most watched nation in the world, with CCTV on every corner, you need to go back to 1942: the now ubiquitous policing aid was first developed for use in missile testing by the German military. Tear gas

Should the European Union agree to legitimise trade with a country that refuses to adhere to European legal standards? This is the fundamental question that will be addressed at tomorrow’s meeting among European privacy regulators when they publish their opinion on the data-sharing agreement known

Section 217 and the Draft Code of Practice on Interception of Communications Tech giants including Apple Inc, Facebook Inc, Google Inc, Microsoft Corp, Twitter Inc and Yahoo Inc have been openly critical of the UK Government’s Investigatory Power Bill (IPBill). However, what has not been highlighted

PI's full analysis can be read here On 29 February 2016, the European Commission and the US government released the details of the proposed EU-U.S. “Privacy Shield”. The “Privacy Shield” replaces the now defunct so-called “Safe Harbor”. The Privacy Shield is in fact a significant number of documents

We already know that in some countries, like the UK, governments are drafting laws to legalise and legitimise their incredible surveillance powers. In the U.S. we are seeing legislation that is using remarkably similar language on encryption and surveillance. The next phase of the cryptowars has

Hacking Team, an Italian surveillance company selling intrusive spyware to government authorities around the world, has had its global export license revoked by the Italian export authorities, according to a report in Il Fatto Quotidiano. The move comes after intensive media scrutiny spurred by the

We do agree with Ramon Fonseca about one thing: that “Each person has a right to privacy, whether they are a king or a beggar.” But that’s where our commonality with co-founder of disgraced Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca ends. Last year, a whistleblower leaked 11.5 million documents about the firm

This week the UN Human Rights Committee has issued recommendations to the Governments of Namibia, New Zealand, Rwanda, South Africa, and Sweden to reform and strengthen surveillance and privacy protections. The Committee recommendations touch upon some of the fundamental issues of surveillance

This article originally appeared in Indepedent Voices here. Since the horrific Brussels and Istanbul attacks we've all looked at our daily lives and saw vulnerability and risk. Where else could terrorists attack? We begin to formulate security responses. CCTV, communication, surveillance, identity

Following the launch of our report " The President’s Men?" shedding light on the existence of the Technical Research Department, a secret unit within the Egyptian intelligence infrastructure we publish here an open letter we have sent to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi demanding that he responds to