News and Analysis

As part of the government’s ambitious Open Data programme, the Cabinet Office announced last year that data from the National Pupil Database (NPD) will be made freely available and accessible to all. The NPD, previously only available to researchers on an academic licence, contains a record for

The UK Minister for Education, Michael Gove, today stated in Parliament that he would be moving forward his plans to open up the National Pupil Database, and announced a government consultation on the initiative. The Minister promised that "all requests to access extracts of data would go through a

Privacy Internationally has submitted two documents to the UK Parliament's Joint Committee reviewing the draft Communications Data Bill. The first submission is an implementation briefing based on our work for the Big Brother Incorporated project, establishing the capabilities and defects of

The Home Office constantly insists that trafffic data is not about the content of the pages you look at, but about the sites you visit. This would have made some sense in 1999 when RIPA was first being debated, but technology has moved on and new open data sources are now available. This allows for

Last week the Rwandan government tightened its grip on citizens when the parliament's lower house adopted legislation that sanctions the widespread monitoring of email and telephone communications.1 The bill is now awaiting Senate approval. The law, an amendment to the 2008 Law Relating to the

Modern communications surveillance policy is about gaining access to modern communications. The problem is that the discourse around communications policy today is almost the same as it was when it was simply a question of gaining access to telephone communications. "Police need access to social

In the PI office, we have daily debates about which platforms to use for our organizational operations. As a privacy charity, we are naturally concerned about the integrity of our own information services and resources, but we frequently receive queries about the best technologies to use from a

Imagine a secret government list of suspicions and allegations, fuelled by unsubstantiated rumours provided by anonymous citizens with undisclosed intentions. The information contained in the list would not be measured against any legal burden of proof or supported by any credible evidence, but

By now, UK internet users are probably familiar with major sites asking them to consent to the use of website cookies. This is prompted by the ' cookie law' (aka "Directive 2002/58 on Privacy and Electronic Communications", otherwise known as the E-Privacy Directive), which is proving a privacy

Governments have no automatic right of access to our communications. This will sound highly controversial to some, even downright radical. But the demands of national security and crime prevention do not, in fact, immediately trump every other right and responsibility in the complex relationship

Drones are back in the headlines, with the news that the Ministry of Defence plans to develop unmanned underwater vehicles for use in submarine warfare. Human rights groups have already raised concerns over the UK’s use of airborne military drones, which have played a key role in UK operations in

Hacking Team is a supplier of “lawful intercept” technology based in Milan. A regular attendee of surveillance industry conferences around the world, last year one of the company’s founding partners told the Guardian that Hacking Team had sold surveillance software to 30 countries across five

Earlier this year, Privacy International began research into the corporate social responsibility policies of companies that sell communications surveillance technology. Given that this technology is known to facilitate human rights abuses in repressive regimes around the world, surveillance tech

As part of Privacy International's investigation into the mass surveillance industry we have examined hundreds of legal documents, brochures and, most recently, patents. Patents are a form of intellectual property; patent-holders publicly disclose their inventions in exchange for the exclusive

Last week’s revelation that Bahraini human rights activists have been targeted by advanced surveillance technology made by British company Gamma is yet another nail in the coffin of privacy and freedom of expression in Bahrain. Over the past ten years, Bahraini citizens, among the most internet

The recent acquisition of Skype by Microsoft, coupled with a series of infrastructural changes, has resulted in a flurry of responses, concerns and analysis of exactly what kind of assistance Skype can provide to law enforcement agencies. Under this heightened scrutiny, Skype released a statement on