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Content Type: News & Analysis
We’ve been asked a lot lately about whether it is safe to travel, particularly to the US. And it’s not surprising why: the US Government is increasing their cruelty at borders.Border management today is fueled by our data, but government officials want more. They want as much data as they can get to catch you out. They’ve reportedly detained or deported people based on their free speech activities, denying entry on tenuous grounds like having the wrong photos on phones (including in in the ‘…
Content Type: Long Read
18th December is International Migrants Day, a day to recognize both the contributions and continued struggles of migrants across the world.Migrants continue to face an increased level of human rights violations through hostile immigration policies and practices. At borders and beyond, their fundamental human rights and dignity are being violated through old and new technologies. These systems in place reinforce the dehumanising rhetoric of migrants, who are merely seeking asylum and a better…
Content Type: Long Read
IntroductionWith the ongoing expansion of GPS tagging under the UK Home Office's electronic monitoring programme, it has increasingly deployed non-fitted devices (NFDs) that track a person's GPS location and request frequent biometric verification in the form of fingerprint scans.The NFDs deployed by the UK Home Office are small handheld devices with a fingerprint scanner that record a person's location 24/7 (referred to as their trail data). They alert the person at random intervals throughout…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Artificial intelligence decision making systems have in recent years become a fixture of immigration enforcement and border control. This is despite the clear and proven harmful impacts they often have on individuals going through the immigration system. More widely, the harms of automated decision making have been increasingly there for all to see: from systems that encode bias and discrimination, as happened in the case of an algorithm used to detect benefit fraud in the Netherlands, to…
Content Type: News & Analysis
In a significant and forceful decision, on 1 March 2024 the UK's Data Protection Authority found that the UK Government's GPS tagging of migrants arriving to the UK by small boats and other "irregular" routes was unlawful.
The decision comes as a result of Privacy International's complaint filed in August 2022 against the GPS tagging policy, which alleged widespread and significant breaches of privacy and data protection law. Our complaint relied extensively on anonymous testimonies of…
Content Type: Long Read
18th December is International Migrants Day. It’s a day designated by the United Nations, dedicated to recognising the “important contribution of migrants while highlighting the challenges they face.”On this day we wish to recognise in particular the countless human rights violations that people experience at borders and within hostile immigration systems. We thank those who survive these violations for sharing with us and others their experiences of such violations, and for accepting to…
Content Type: Long Read
With the introduction of GPS tracking of people on immigration bail, the UK has recently put GPS ankle tags, and their potential privacy and security issues, under the spotlight. PI has exposed the intrusive nature and shortcomings of these devices through technical explainers and complaints to the UK data protection and forensic science regulators.
But, what better way to understand the risks associated with a device than to actually use one? In order to further consolidate our understanding…
Content Type: Long Read
The rise of racist and xenophobic narratives around the world has led to a ramping up of brutal migration control policies. Indefinite detention, pushbacks of boats at sea, or deportation for offshore processing of asylum claims all now form part of the arsenal deployed by some governments to “appear tough” on and provide "solutions" to immigration. A stark example is the UK’s “hostile environment” policy, announced 10 years ago by then Home Secretary Theresa May and designed to deter migrants…
Content Type: Long Read
Since early 2021, PI have been investigating and challenging the latest stride in the UK’s cruel migration policies: the roll-out of GPS ankle tags to monitor migrants released on immigration bail, a dehumanising, invasive method of control that monitors and records people’s precise location 24/7.
More recently, we found out through Freedom of Information Requests that the Home Office is working to roll out "smartwatches" - devices that also record 24/7 location data, but instead of being…
Content Type: News & Analysis
In a judgment of 14 October 2022, the UK High Court ordered the UK Home Office to provide remedy to the thousands of migrants affected by its unlawful policy and practice of seizing mobile phones from people arriving by small boats to UK shores.
The availability and spread of new technologies, and the exponential amounts of data they generate, are regularly being abused by governments to surveil and control people - but these new forms of surveillance are only starting to make their way through…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Privacy International (PI) has today filed complaints with the Information Commissioner (ICO) and Forensic Science Regulator (FSR) against the UK Home Office's use of GPS ankle tags to monitor migrants released on immigration bail. This policy and practice represents a seismic change in the surveillance of migrants in the UK. PI was first alerted to this scheme by organisations such as Bail for Immigration Detainees, an independent charity that exists to challenge immigration detention in the…
Content Type: Video
Links
Giacomo’s report on Europe’s Shady Funds to Border Forces in the Sahel https://privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/3223/europes-shady-funds-border-forces-sahel
Giacomo’s report on The European Chase for Saharan Smugglers https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/3347/european-chase-saharan-smugglers
Privacy International’s disclosures on the EU’s surveillance aid https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/4291/surveillance-disclosures-show-urgent-need-reforms-eu-aid-…
Content Type: Video
Links
Josoor International Solidarity’s website is at https://www.josoor.net
No Name Kitchen’s website https://www.nonamekitchen.org
Border Violence Monitoring Network’s Website is at https://www.borderviolence.eu
Their reports documenting violence and trends in Greece and the Balkans route are at https://www.borderviolence.eu/category/monthly-report/
Lighthouse Report’s investigations on pushbacks in the Aegean are available at https://www.lighthousereports.nl/investigation/…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Background
Today judgment has been handed down in the landmark case of R (HM and MA and KH) v Secretary of State for the Home Department.
This is a Judicial Review decision concerning the UK Home Office’s secret and blanket policy of seizing mobile phones of all migrants who arrived to the UK by small boat between April 2020 and November 2020, and extracting data from all phones. PI was a third party intervener in the case.
The case revealed that migrants were searched on arrival at Tug Haven…
Content Type: Explainer
Introduction/Background
Electronic tags have been a key part of criminal justice offender management for over 20 years, being used in the United States since the mid 1980’s and in the UK and some other commonwealth countries since 2003. In 2021 the UK introduced GPS tagging for immigration bail.
The tag is predominantly used to curtail the liberties of individuals. For those on criminal bail its intended use includes managing return into communities while deterring reoffending.
As we explore…
Content Type: Long Read
In a roundtable available on YouTube, co-hosted with Garden Court Chambers, Privacy International brought together immigration law practitioners to discuss how they’ve used privacy and data protection law to seek information or redress for their clients.Index:1. UK Border 20252. Super-complaint and judicial review challenge to data sharing3. Mobile phone seizure and extraction4. Freedom of Information Act requestsThe dystopian future: UK Border 2025To set the scene on how the future may look…
Content Type: News & Analysis
In a ruling handed down on 14 October 2021 by the High Court of Kenya in relation to an application filed by Katiba Institute calling for a halt to the rollout of the Huduma card in the absence of a data impact assessment, the Kenyan High Court found that the Data Protection Act applied retrospectively.
Background to the case
Huduma Namba as initially proposed
In January 2019, the Kenyan Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendment) Act No. 18 of 2018 came into effect, introducing a raft of amendments…
Content Type: News & Analysis
2022 will see a raft of high tech surveillance tools emerging in the UK government’s arsenal, which will further entrench a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants. Compounding this further, immigration officers will increasingly be using digital forensic tools such as 'mobile phone extraction' under a veil of secrecy. This raises serious concerns about overreach, misuse and abuse of power, the actual quality and integrity of the data they gather, and independent oversight of these powers. But it…
Content Type: Video
In Kenya, if you don’t have an ID, life can be extremely difficult. But for thousands of people across the country, getting an ID can be nigh on impossible. Some Kenyan citizens can’t obtain a national ID because they are registered in the Kenyan refugee database. Often referred to as victims of double registration, their predicaments reveal a deeper problem with ID itself.
Now Haki na Sheria - a Kenyan organisation advocating for and supporting the victims of double registration - and three…
Content Type: Long Read
For over 20 years with the start of the first use of ICTs in the 1990s, we have seen a digital revolution in the health sector. The Covid-19 pandemic significantly accelerated the digitalisation of the health sector, and it illustrates how fast this uptake can be and what opportunities can emerge; but also, importantly, the risks that it involves.
As we've said many times before, whilst technologies can be part of the solution to tackle some socio-economic and political challenges facing our…
Content Type: News & Analysis
After almost 20 years of presence of the Allied Forces in Afghanistan, the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement in February 2020 on the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan by May 2021. A few weeks before the final US troops were due to leave Afghanistan, the Taliban had already taken control of various main cities. They took over the capital, Kabul, on 15 August 2021, and on the same day the President of Afghanistan left the country.
As seen before with regime…
Content Type: News & Analysis
A new industry is offering border agencies around the world access to advanced space-based surveillance capabilities once reserved for the most advanced intelligence agencies. Using satellites able to track signals from satellite phones and other emitters, these companies are then selling access to the data obtained to anyone willing to pay, including UK and EU border agencies.
While such surveillance can and is being used to save lives, it can also be used for illegal ‘pull backs’ in…
Content Type: Explainer
An array of digital technologies are being deployed in the context of border enforcement. Satellite and aerial surveillance are part of the surveillance toolkit and yet, they are also used by organisations seeking to hold government actions to account and improve efficacy of their own work. To effectively critique state use and delve into potential benefits of satellite and aerial surveillance, we must first understand it.
In this explainer we dig into a technology which many are aware of for…
Content Type: News & Analysis
This article was written by Abdías Zambrano, Public Policy Coordinator at IPANDETEC, and is adapted from a blog entry that originally appeared here.
Digital identity can be described as our digital personal data footprint, ranging from banking information and statistics to images, news we appear in and social network profiles, interactions with and in digital platforms, and information contained in private and public repositories. Our whole life is online, often leaving us with little choice…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Legislation to "strengthen the integrity of UK elections and protect our democracy" through the Elections Integrity Bill was introduced to parliament this week.
This legislation will require people, for the first time in Great Britain, to show a state-issued photo ID, such as a driving license or passport, in order to exercise their right to vote, perhaps by the 2023 General Elections. The changes would affect elections in England, Scotland and Wales while voters in Northern Ireland are already…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Around the world, we see migration authorities use technology to analyse the devices of asylum seekers. The UK via the Policing Bill includes immigration officers amongst those who can exercise powers to extract information from electronic devices. There are two overarching reasons why this is problematic:
The sole provision in the Policing Bill to extract information rests on voluntary provision and agreement, which fails to account for the power imbalance between individual and state. This…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Earlier this week, the UK Government announced that no immigration status checks will be carried out for migrants trying to register with their GP and get vaccinated. But temporary offers of safety are not enough to undo the decades of harm caused by policies that have embedded immigration controls into public services.
Years of charging migrants for healthcare and sharing patient data with the Home Office has eroded trust between migrant communities and the NHS. As a result, they might not…
Content Type: Report
Privacy International has released a report summarising the result of its research into the databases and surveillance tools used by authorities across the UK’s borders, immigration, and citizenship system.
The report uses procurement, contractual, and other open-source data and aims to inform the work of civil society organisations and increase understanding of a vast yet highly opaque system upon which millions of people rely.
It also describes and maps…
Content Type: Video
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Content Type: Long Read
This report is available in English.
La mayoría de los documentos nacionales de identidad y demás documentos emitidos por autoridades estatales incluyen un marcador de género. Estos marcadores suelen recibir el nombre de “marcador de sexo” aunque este término no sea preciso. La presencia de dichos marcadores, especialmente en los certificados de nacimiento, promueve el énfasis de nuestra sociedad en el género como criterio de asignación de identidades, roles y responsabilidades sociales. Al…