News and Analysis

N&A, Long Reads, Press Release

News & Analysis
Over a dozen international companies are supplying powerful communications surveillance technology in Colombia, according to a Privacy International investigation released today featuring original documentation. Over the past few decades, companies primarily from Israel, the US, and the UK have
News & Analysis
“We always assume we are being watched. It is part of our understanding,” explained Father Alberto. The clergyman knows what it's like to live under surveillance. Father Alberto is Executive Secretary of the Inter-ecclesiastical Commission for Justice and Peace in Colombia, which supports displaced
Press release
The release of a new report by Privacy International exposes Colombia's intelligence agencies' previously unknown history of developing communications surveillance capabilities outside of lawful authority. The report “ Shadow State: Surveillance law and order in Colombia” reveals, via previously
Press release
In yet another blow to the UK’s surveillance proponents, the UN Human Rights Committee has criticised the British legal regime governing the interception of communications, observing that it allows for mass surveillance and lacks sufficient safeguards. The latest in a series of calls for wholesale
News & Analysis
Every government seems to want to spy in Pakistan. The US' National Security Agency (NSA) tapped the fibre optic cables landing in Karachi, among others, and used 55 million phone records harvested from Pakistani telecommunications providers for an analysis exercise. The United Kingdom's Government
Press release
A new report released today by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) highlights key technical blind spots in current GCHQ oversight and calls for a new, comprehensive and clear legal framework governing British intelligence agencies' surveillance capability. The report panel, which included
News & Analysis
On July 6th, the company Hacking Team was hacked: over 400GB of administrative documents, source code and emails are now available for download. Documents from the hack confirm once again the claims made in our report Their Eyes on Me, the Moroccan intelligence services made use of Hacking Team's
News & Analysis
Here are eight things we have learned from this week's hack of some 400GB of internal company material and correspondence from Italian surveillance company Hacking Team. The Citizen Lab was right The Citizen Lab, who in 2014 identified some 21 countries that are potential customers of Hacking Team
Press release
A 400 gigabyte trove of internal documents belonging to surveillance company Hacking Team has been released online. Hacking team sells intrusive hacking tools that have allegedly been used by some of the most repressive regimes in the world. The documents reportedly confirm Hacking Team has
News & Analysis
Privacy International and twenty-two other organisations from around the world welcome the appointment of Mr Joseph Cannataci as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy. Today, the President of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Mr Cannataci to fill the post that was created by
Press release
The UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) today notified the ten NGO claimants in a legal challenge against GCHQ mass surveillance practices that the Tribunal had mistakenly omitted information about unlawful GCHQ actives in their judgment from ten days ago . In an email to the claimants
News & Analysis
The Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance Exports (CAUSE) has today released a new policy paper calling on the EU to take the opportunity to update its Dual Use Regulation to ensure that surveillance technologies are not exported from Europe and used for human rights violations. The proposals have
Press release
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) today revealed that the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) spied on two international human rights organisations, failed to follow ITS own secret procedures and acted unlawfully. The targeted NGOs are the South African Legal Resources Centre (LRC
News & Analysis
A groundbreaking report released today by the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, David Kaye, calls on states to ensure security and privacy online by providing “comprehensive protection” through encryption and anonymity tools, warning that blanket measures to restrict online privacy
Press release
Privacy International today filed a legal complaint demanding an end to the bulk collection of phone records and harvesting of other databases, from millions of people who have no ties to terrorism, nor are suspected of any crime. The complaint, filed in the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal, is
Press release
Governments must accept they have lost the debate over the legitimacy of mass surveillance and reform their oversight of intelligence gathering, Privacy International and Amnesty International said today in a briefing published two years after Edward Snowden blew the lid on US and UK intelligence