Reports

Reports, Long Reads, Country Reports

Report
Privacy International welcomes the opportunity to file these comments in advance of the Federal Trade Commission’s public hearings on competition and consumer protection in the 21st century.
Report
Countries with powerful security agencies are spending literally billions to equip, finance and train security and surveillance agencies around the world — including authoritarian regimes. This is resulting in entrenched authoritarianism, further facilitation of abuse against people, and diversion
Long Read
Privacy International (PI) has today released a new report, 'Teach 'em to Phish: State Sponsors of Surveillance', showing how countries with powerful security agencies are training, equipping, and directly financing foreign surveillance agencies. Spurred by advances in technology, increased
Long Read
How would you feel if you were fingerprinted by the police before you were allowed to take part in a peaceful public demonstration? As tens of thousands of people attend massive public demonstrations across the UK today against US President Donald Trump in a ‘Carnival of Resistance’, it’s a question
Long Read
This piece was written by PI voluteer Natalie Chyi. Transparency is necessary to ensure that those in power – including governments and companies – are not able to operate in the dark, away from publicscrutiny. That’s why calls for more transparency are routine by everyone from civil society and
Long Read
Privacy and data protection are currently being debated more intensively than ever before. In this interview, Frederike Kaltheuner from the civil rights organisation Privacy International explains why those terms have become so fundamentally important to us. The article was first published in the
Long Read
The UK's Information Commissioner's Office announces it intends to fine Facebook the maximum amount possible for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Long Read
Update 28 June 2018 Last week Privacy International wrote to Thomson Reuters Corporation asking the company to commit to ensuring the vast amounts of data they provide to US immigration agencies isn’t used to identify families for indefinite detention or separation, or for other human rights abuses
Long Read
The European Union's new data privacy law (General Data Protection Regulation, better known as GDPR) takes effect today May 25th, 2018, after a two-year transition period. Despite some companies appearing to believe otherwise, and many articles misrepresenting its contents, the GDPR will have a
Long Read
We found the image here. Open a Russian Matryoshka doll and you will find a smaller doll inside. Ask a large data company such as Acxiom and Oracle where they get their data from, and the answer will be from smaller data companies. Data companies – a catch all term for data brokers, advertisers
Long Read
Privacy and data protection are fundamental rights. When respected they help improve trust and reduce power imbalances. Individuals should have rights over their personal data, regardless of who holds or processes it, and effective ways to enforce those rights, through independent bodies. While not
Long Read
If you operate an internet company in Russia, you aren’t necessarily surprised to one day open the door to someone, grasping in one hand a bundle of wires and in the other a letter from a government agency demanding access to your servers, with a black box wedged under one arm. Internet companies in
Long Read
Hasn't Facebook said it would give European data protection to all of their users? Yes, but only in very vague language. In an initial reaction to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Mark Zuckerberg declared that Facebook would apply the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) “in spirit” to their
Report
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is part of our daily lives. This technology shapes how people access information, interact with devices, share personal information, and even understand foreign languages. It also transforms how individuals and groups can be tracked and identified, and dramatically
Report
The use of biometric technology in political processes, i.e. the use of peoples’ physical and behavioural characteristics to authenticate claimed identity, has swept across the African region, with 75% of African countries adopting one form or other of biometric technology in their electoral
Long Read
TO TAKE PART IN OUR CAMPAIGN, RIGHT CLICK ON THE PICTURES BELOW, SAVE THEM, AND SHARE THEM ON SOCIAL MEDIA TAGGED #SPYPOLICE Have you ever been to a peaceful protest, demo or march? Did you assume that the police would only be identifying 'troublemakers'? How would you feel if just by turning up at