Reports

Reports, Long Reads, Country Reports

State of Privacy

State of Privacy Argentina

A study of privacy and surveillance issues in Argentina. The State of Privacy project was last updated on January 2019, unless otherwise provided on specific pages.

Report

How Apps on Android Share Data with Facebook (even if you don’t have a Facebook account) - Cover

How Apps on Android Share Data with Facebook - Report

Facebook routinely tracks users, non-users and logged-out users outside its platform through Facebook Business Tools. App developers share data with Facebook through the Facebook Software Development Kit (SDK), a set of software development tools that help developers build apps for a specific operating system. Using the free and open source software tool called "mitmproxy", an interactive HTTPS proxy, Privacy International has analyzed the data that 34 apps on Android, each with an install base from 10 to 500 million, transmit to Facebook through the Facebook SDK.

Long Read

Exclusion and identity: life without ID

Photo credit: Francisco Javier Argel Questions of identification and ID, with their associated privacy risks, are only increasing. There are multiple dimensions to understanding the impact of ID and identification; a key one is to understand how it can exclude. This is why Privacy International is

Report

The Humanitarian Metadata Problem - Doing No Harm in the Digital Era

New technologies continue to present great risks and opportunities for humanitarian action. To ensure that their use does not result in any harm, humanitarian organisations must develop and implement appropriate data protection standards, including robust risk assessments. However, this requires a

Long Read

Join our Supreme Court challenge against mass government hacking

As our four year battle against the UK government’s extraordinarily broad and intrusive hacking powers goes to the Supreme Court, we are launching a new fundraising appeal in partnership with CrowdJustice. We are seeking to raise £5k towards our costs and need your help. If we lose, the court may

Report

Perception Survey on Communication Surveillance and Privacy of Human Rights Defenders in Kenya

In December 2018, the National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders-Kenya published a report analysing the needs and concerns of human rights defenders (HRD) in relation to privacy, data protection and communications surveillance. A summary of their findings is below. Access the full report on their

Long Read

We “value” your privacy – (now allow us to track you across the internet)

I asked an online tracking company for all of my data and here's what I found

It’s 15:10 pm on April 18, 2018. I’m in the Privacy International office, reading a news story on the use of facial recognition in Thailand. On April 20, at 21:10, I clicked on a CNN Money Exclusive on my phone. At 11:45 on May 11, 2018, I read a story on USA Today about Facebook knowing when teen

Long Read

Fintech’s dirty little secret? Lenddo, Facebook and the challenge of identity

Photo Credit: Max Pixel The fintech sector, with its data-intensive approach to financial services, faces a looming problem. Scandals such as Cambridge Analytica have brought public awareness about abuses involving the use of personal data from Facebook and other sources. Many of these are the same

Long Read

Cyber Security Awareness Month: Privacy and Security Must Go Together

Since 2004, October has been designated National Cyber Security Awareness Month in the United States. Many other countries have followed suit, as part of the effort to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity, and how we can all work together to improve it. However, cyber security (or

Long Read

Five ways your privacy is compromised without you realising

Photo credit: Pixabay This piece was originally published in iNews It seems that you can’t go anywhere online at the moment without being reassured that ‘we respect your privacy’ and being directed to a 2,000-word privacy policy. You probably just click ‘got it, thanks’ because who has the luxury to

Long Read

New U.K. Law Fails European Court Standards on Mass Interception Disclosed by Snowden

This piece was originally published in Just Security. Earlier this month, the European Court of Human Rights issued a major judgment in three consolidated cases challenging the U.K. government’s mass interception program, which was first revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013. That judgment finds

Long Read

Mass surveillance has no place in a free and democratic society

What the 2018 European Court Ruling Means for Mass Spying Around the World

Written jointly by Privacy International and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In a landmark decision earlier this month, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that one of the mass surveillance programs revealed by Edward Snowden violates the rights to privacy and freedom of expression

Long Read

Initial analysis of Indian Supreme Court decision on Aadhaar

Image attribution: By Legaleagle86 at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. In a long-anticipated judgment, the Indian Supreme Court has ruled that India's controversial identification system Aadhaar is Constitutional. They based their conclusion on notes that there are sufficient measures in place to protect

Long Read

We ask the Home Secretary why UK intelligence agencies have unlawfully analysed PI's data

The UK's domestic-facing intelligence agency, MI5, today admitted that it captured and read Privacy International's private data as part of its Bulk Communications Data (BCD) and Bulk Personal Datasets (BPD) programmes, which hoover up massive amounts of the public's data. In further startling legal

Long Read

"Management takes no responsibility for your personal belonging"

Identity, discrimination, and the challenge of ID

Who are you? The Challenges of Identity and Identification “Identity” is a word that covers an incredible range of contested, deeply personal and highly politicised questions. These range from the political and the sociological, through to the psychological and philosophical. A question such as “who

Long Read

UK mass surveillance violates your rights

UK mass interception law violates human rights - but the fight against mass surveillance continues (from 2018)

The European Court of Human Rights ruled today that the UK government's mass interception program violates the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. The Court held that the program "is incapable of keeping the 'interference' to what is 'necessary in a democratic society'". This finding is an