News and Analysis

N&A, Long Reads, Press Release

Long Read

Criminal complaint to National Cyber Crime Unit on behalf of Bahraini activists

Privacy International in October 2014 made a criminal complaint to the National Cyber Crime Unit of the National Crime Agency, urging the immediate investigation of the unlawful surveillance of three Bahraini activists living in the UK by Bahraini authorities using the intrusive malware FinFisher

News & Analysis

Bahrain Gamma International Finfisher press conference

Bahraini Government, With Help From FinFisher, Tracks Activists Living In The United Kingdom

Jaafar Al Hasabi, Mohammed Moosa Abd-Ali Ali, and Saeed Al-Shehabi each fled Bahrain for the United Kingdom with one goal: to be safe. These men, activists in the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain, were variously subject to torture, arbitrary detention, harassment, and psychological trauma in their

News & Analysis

Five Eyes’ quest for security has given us widespread insecurity

Between 15th-19th of September, in the week leading up the first year aniversary of the 13 Necessary and Proportionate Principles, Privacy International and the coalition behind the 13 Principles will be conducting a Week of Action explaining some of the key guiding principles for surveillance law

Long Read

The Trap of Simplicity: Why Analogies for Surveillance Fail Us

Bad analogies about surveillance technology pervade newspaper reports, politicians’ speeches, and legal arguments. While it’s natural to want simple explanations to understand complex technology, it does us a disservice when governments, the media, or the courts mislead us through analogies that are

News & Analysis

Australian government pushing to expand surveillance, hacking powers

In a disturbing move to broaden its mass surveillance powers, the government of Australia is pushing forward a bill that undermines fundamental rights, including the right to privacy. Disappointingly, this comes mere months after civil society and citizens alike expressed outrage over the Australian

News & Analysis

Six things we know from the latest FinFisher documents

The publishing of materials from a support server belonging to surveillance-industry giant Gamma International has provided a trove of information for technologists, security researchers and activists. This has given the world a direct insight into a tight-knit industry, which demands secrecy for

News & Analysis

Elaman and Gamma: what's selling and who's buying in Indonesia?

Last year, UK-based surveillance company Gamma TSE sold the Indonesian military US$ 6.7 million worth of equipment as part of the military's weapons modernisation effort. As early as 2005, Indonesian officials were soliciting the advice of a close partner of Gamma, Germany-based Elaman, to create

News & Analysis

Identity theft persists in Pakistan's biometric era

This is a guest piece. It does not necessarily reflect the views or position of Privacy International To open a bank account in Pakistan, to get a new driver license or passport or to activate a SIM card, you need to present a computerized national identity card. These cards are about more than just

News & Analysis

The Government Is Trying To Create A Surveillance State

The following is an excerpt from an op-ed that appeared in the Daily Telegraph written by Carly Nyst, Legal Director of Privacy International: One of the most shocking discoveries from Edward Snowden's disclosures was that GCHQ, the British intelligence agency, is tapping undersea cables to harvest

News & Analysis

UN privacy report a game-changer in fighting unlawful surveillance

Today’s report on the right to privacy in the digital age by the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, commissioned by the General Assembly in December 2013, marks an historic turning point in the international discourse around privacy and surveillance. Privacy International believes the report will

News & Analysis

No slow DRIP: Expansion of surveillance powers being rammed through Parliament

Despite having over three months to introduce legislation responding to the Court of Justice of the European Union striking down the Data Retention Directive , an 'emergency' surveillance bill is being rammed through Parliament this week. Not only does the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers

News & Analysis

What to Know: GCHQ On Trial

From Monday 14 to Friday 18 July, the British intelligence agencies and the Ministers responsible for them will be under the spotlight in an historic case to determine whether GCHQ's mass communications surveillance activities are a violation of Britain's human rights obligations. Privacy

News & Analysis

Stop breaking the internet: internet and communications service providers take legal action against GCHQ

We have learnt a lot in the last year about the dirty games GCHQ and NSA are playing to infiltrate the networks, tools and technologies we all use to communicate. This includes forcing companies to handover their customers’ data under secret orders, and secretly tapping fibre optic cablesbetween the

News & Analysis

How privacy-friendly is the new European Parliament?

The European Union’s privacy and data protection laws are some of the strongest in the world. And the privacy-related activities of the last European Parliament (2009-2014) have been the most intense in its history. For half of its term it steered the highly-debated data protection law reforms, with

News & Analysis

Addressing The Right To Privacy At United Nations

What do Egypt, Kenya, Turkey, Guinea, and Sweden have in common? Despite having a Constitutional right to privacy, they are adopting and enforcing policies that directly challenge this human right. These states are also up for a Universal Periodic Review this year before the United Nations Human

Press release

UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance of residents’ Facebook and Google use

Britain’s top counter-terrorism official has been forced to reveal a secret Government policy justifying the mass surveillance of every Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google user in the UK. This disturbing policy was made public due to a legal challenge brought by Privacy International, Liberty