Surveillance

In response to an FOI request, US Customs and Border Patrol released the video collected by a Predator drone it flew for 90 minutes at a height of 6,000 feet over the Minneapolis protests following the murder of George Floyd. CBP has been repeatedly found engaging in this type of surveillance; past

Over 2020, EFF supported the right to protest without being surveilled by bringing lawsuits, offering protesters legal support, teaching protesters surveillance self-defence, and providing tools for people on the ground to use to determine what equipment their local police departments are using to

Despite having promised in 2016 not to facilitate domestic surveillance, the AI startup Dataminr used its firehose access to Twitter to alert law enforcement to social media posts with the latest whereabouts and actions of demonstrators involved in the protests following the killing of George Floyd

Following the January 6 invasion of the US Capitol Building, federal law enforcement used a wide variety of surveillance technologies to track down participants, including facial recognition, licence plate readers, policy body cameras, and cellphone tracking. While many of the people being tracked

New data emerged in January 2021 to show that the National Guard deployment of more than 43,350 troops during the nationwide demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd was far more extensive than had been realised, and far greater than the 6,200 troops deployed at the Capitol during the

Hundreds of emails and documents obtained in response to a freedom of information request by BuzzFeed News show that US federal agents monitored social media for information on planned Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Minneapolis, Washington DC, Los Angeles, and other cities. Researchers and

Human rights activists and Democratic members of the US Congress wrote to top law enforcement officials in the Trump administration to demand they cease surveilling Americans engaging in peaceful protests. Trump and others in his administration called those protesting the killing of George Floyd

During the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020, US police took advantage of a lack of regulation and new technologies to expand the scope of people and platforms they monitor; details typically emerge through lawsuits, public records disclosures, and stories released by police department PR

A nationwide US study plans to examine the impact on employer surveillance of the shift of workers from on-site office environments to working in their homes. The authors intend to highlight worker (dis)comfort and concerns. Source: https://covid19research.ssrc.org/grantee/how-covid-19-is-changing

As working from home expands, employers are ramping up surveillance using the features built into software such as Microsoft Teams and Slack, which report when employees are active, or requiring employees to attend early-morning video conferences with webcams switched on. In early 2020, PwC

The US company Hubstaff, which provides monitoring software to employers, says its UK customer base quadrupled between February and October 2020. The software tracks workers’ hours, keystrokes, mouse movements, and website visits. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development warns that

Thermal temperature scanners, software keystroke monitors, and wearable location trackers are proliferating in US workplaces, with the data they collect outside of any of the country's electronic privacy laws. Companies report that employers are being asked to form part of the front line of contact

Nepal will deport five foreign tourists and ban them from re-entering the country for two years after they joined protests demanding better quarantine facilities, more testing, and transparency in procuring medical supplies. Four tourists - three from China and one from the US - were arrested and

The Finnish government will not move forward with its plan to oblige unsuccessful asylum seekers to wear ankle monitors, Maria Ohisalo, the Minister of the Interior, stated on Tuesday. “It’s something that’d be difficult to carry out as it’s considered in the government programme,” she said. “The

Many of the technologies used to combat the coronavirus pandemic, including monitoring and analysing social media posts, telecommunications location data, and the use of sensors, were first tested on refugees during the 2015 crisis and are now being repurposed in the name of public health. In 2019

A parliamentary panel granted Israel's Shin Bet security service an additional three weeks to use mobile phone data to track people infected with the coronavirus; prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had requested a six-week extension while his government drafts legislation to regulate the data use in