02 Jun 2020
A mix of city data and reports from building superintendents and porters provides evidence on how New York City’s residents’ behaviour has changed during the lockdown. Among the findings so far: residents are recycling 27% more, particularly clear glass, and total garbage collected has dropped
04 Jun 2020
Gypsy and Traveller communities in England, especially those living on canals and waterways or in unauthorised roadside encampments, have had no access to sanitation, refuse collection, or water for drinking, cooking, showering, and washing clothes during the coronavirus lockdown. Some local
04 Jun 2020
The app-based track-and-trace system that was supposed to be in place in the UK by June 1 will not be working at full speed until September or October, and the chief executive of Serco, one of the main companies contracted to deliver it, doubted the system would evolve smoothly. Scientists have said
04 Jun 2020
In the three months from March to May 2020 the UK government awarded at least £1.7 billion in contracts to private companies, most of them without a competitive tender process under emergency procurement measures put in place in March. A quarter of the 400 contracts that government departments have
05 Jun 2020
UK police reported to be planning separate contact tracing system Police forces in the UK are planning their own contact tracing system because they are concerned that giving details to the national contact tracing system would compromise undercover operations and working methods. Options under
05 Jun 2020
Kenya’s Independent Policing Oversight Body reports that it received 87 complaints covering 31 incidents in which injuries were linked to the actions of police officers and 15 deaths between curfew’s imposition on March 27 and June 5. In April, Human Rights Watch accused the police of brutality in
05 Jun 2020
Hours before OpenDemocracy filed suit to compel the UK government to release all the contracts governing its deals with a list of technology firms including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Palantir, and Faculty, the UK government released the contracts. Faculty is being paid more than £1 million to
08 Jun 2020
It's been two months since the launch of "Perú en us manos", the mobile app promoted by the Peruvian government amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. Until now the app did not accomplish the ambitious goals it set out to. On its first month the app had detected 1400 risk zones while there where already 36
09 Jun 2020
Russian authorities are considering introducing an app that migrant workers will be required to download when they enter the country. Leaked details indicate that the app would contain detailed biometric data, health status, police records, and a “social trustworthiness” rating. It’s unclear whether
16 Jun 2020
South America has become the scene of one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent times. The crisis involving migrants and refugees from Venezuela involves children, adolescents, and young people who have left their country of origin to settle in surrounding countries, either due to political or
17 Jun 2020
Thousands of Muscovites ordered to download a hastily-developed app to enforce their quarantine report that they have been wrongly geolocated and fined and that the app has trapped them into compliance criteria that are impossible to meet. The app, which demands an exceptionally broad range of
21 Jun 2020
Although the Home Office does not record ethnicity data for detainees, analysis of nationalities of those recently held within the immigration detention estate found that citizens from countries with predominantly black and brown populations are held for substantially longer periods than those from
22 Jun 2020
Immigration rules that have left 1 million migrant workers in the UK at risk of destitution because they cannot claim universal credit should be suspended on public health grounds during the pandemic, a cross-party group of MPs has recommended. The work and pensions select committee said the no
24 Jun 2020
The October 2019 Presidential Decree 98/2019 granted the Hellenic Police the option of using drones in policing and border management for broad purposes; previously they were limited to using them for purposes such as preventing forest fires or helping rescue people after a natural disaster or an
30 Jun 2020
Up to 30 charities and organisations have written to home secretary Priti Patel calling for a number of amendments on Tuesday - a year exactly until the scheme ends. Under current arrangements, EU citizens have been told to apply by June if they wish to continue living and working in Britain.The
30 Jun 2020
The findings of Freedom from Torture’s report, based on reviews of transcripts of asylum interviews carried out by the Home Office in 2017 or 2018 and a series of focus groups and interviews involving 25 torture survivors who had attended asylum interviews, shows they were often prevented from
30 Jun 2020
After ORG asked questions via its legal representative, AWO’s Ravi Naik, the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care agreed to change the period it would retain Test and Trace data from 20 years to eight. Public Health England manager Yvonne Doyle explained that the novelty of COVID-19 was the
04 Jul 2020
The Santiago Court of Appeals has ruled that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs cannot require migrants to sign a declaration saying they agree to not return to Chile for nine years. The government is now going forward with an appeal stating that this ruling contraditcs a 2018 resolution, says the
05 Jul 2020
New US federal data released by the CDC in response to freedom of information requests show striking racial and ethnic disparities in all parts of the country in who gets infected and hospitalised with coronavirus. A survey of 640,000 infections in nearly 1,000 US counties found that Latino and
