News and Analysis

N&A, Long Reads, Press Release

Press release
Civil society organisations today called upon the members of the Human Rights Council to assess whether national surveillance laws and activities are in line with their international human rights obligations. The Snowden revelations have confirmed that governments worldwide continue to expand their
News & Analysis
For some time now, Gamma International has been criticised for exporting dangerous surveillance technologies from the UK to repressive regimes. Now, we are learning that the company is taking its show on the road, as recent reports have said that Gamma are now attempting to export its products
News & Analysis
This is a excerpt from a piece, written by Privacy International partners Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, which appears in the Fall issue of the World Policy Journal: In March 2013, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security at the U.S. State Department issued a warning for Americans wanting to come to
News & Analysis
This week in London, the world's largest arms fair DSEI rolled into town, bringing together some of the world’s most sophisticated killing and torture equipment with some of the world’s worst human rights abusers. On sale this year was also some of the UK’s premier lawful interception and
News & Analysis
It was only a year ago when the UK Home Office repeatedly made statements about how their capability to collect intelligence was degrading, and how new laws such as the Communications Data Bill were necessary to protect citizens. In hindsight, given the revelations about the UK domestic mass
News & Analysis
Through our Big Brother Incorporated project, Privacy International over the past two years has been campaigning against the export of surveillance technologies by Western companies to repressive regimes. One of the seminal moments of this campaign was in 2011, when we partnered with Wikileaks to
Press release
Transparency reports have traditionally played a critical role in informing the public on the lawful access requests made by governments to companies like Facebook. These reports have provided a useful accountability mechanism for users to know what governments are asking for and how often
News & Analysis
The development agenda is heralding a new cure-all for humanitarian and development challenges – data. In the latest incarnation of the development world’s dominant paradigm, ICTs for Development, data is being embraced, analysed and monitored by companies, humanitarian organisations, aid donors and
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For some time now there has been a need to update understandings of existing human rights law to reflect modern surveillance technologies and techniques. Nothing could demonstrate the urgency of this situation more than the recent revelations confirming the mass surveillance of innocent individuals
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Barclays recently announced that they were looking to sell "aggregated" customer data to third parties. While the news sparked concern among the UK public, the practice, unfortunately, is becoming common among many industries. A few months ago, it was revealed that Everything Everywhere appeared to
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Following reports that the Mexican prosecution authority appears to be not only using FinFisher, but also to be involved in a corruption scandal surrounding the purchase of this intrusive surveillance technology, the Mexican Permanent Commission (composed of members of the Mexican Senate and
News & Analysis
Since mid-2012 the Hebrew University International Human Rights Clinic has been collaborating with Privacy International to produce research about the state of privacy laws and protections in Israel and worldwide. Last week marked the launch of a long-anticipated pilot of a controversial Israeli
Long Read
Britain's spy agency, GCHQ, is secretly conducting mass surveillance by tapping fibre optic cables, giving it access to huge amounts of data on both innocent citizens and targeted suspects, according to a report in the Guardian. Mass, indiscriminate surveillance of this kind goes against an
News & Analysis
It is a long-standing privacy principle that an individual should have access to their personal information. This is particularly necessary in healthcare - after all there is nothing more personal than health information. As the mass digitisation of health records increases, many issues arise about
News & Analysis
The following excerpt is from a posting in the Guardian's Comment is Free by Carly Nyst, Privacy International's Head of International Advocacy. "In order to challenge a secret surveillance system, and to demand the government explains why it is spying on British citizens, one must apply to a secret
News & Analysis
All across the U.S. on 4 July, thousands of Americans gathered at Restore the Fourth rallies, in support of restoring the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and to protest the recently-disclosed information regarding NSA spying on American citizens. Demonstrations took place in over 100