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Content Type: Long Read
Social media is now undeniably a significant part of many of our lives, in the UK and around the world. We use it to connect with others and share information in public and private ways. Governments and companies have, of course, taken note and built fortunes or extended their power by exploiting the digital information we generate. But should the power to use the information we share online be unlimited, especially for governments who increasingly use that information to make material…
Content Type: Examples
L3Harris is contracted by the U.S. Space Force to develop space surveillance information though a programme known as MOSSAIC (the Maintenance Of Space Situational Awareness Integrated Capabilities). The program is said to provide space surveillance information for military, civil and commercial users.https://www.satellitetoday.com/government-military/2024/04/19/us-space-force-awards-l3harris-contract-option-for-space-surveillance-program/Publication: ViaSatelliteWriter: Rachel Jewett
Content Type: Examples
Israel based company, High Lander, is providing demos of its system, called Orion, to U.S. police departments, suggesting the drones can help in law enforcement, including by performing video surveillance, searching for people or vehicles using AI and thermal sensors. https://theintercept.com/2024/05/17/israel-orione-drone-us-police-louisiana/Publication: The InterceptWriter: Delaney Nolan
Content Type: Examples
Microsoft pitched the use of OpenAI's DALL-E software to support battlefield operations of the US Department of Defense, in seeming contravention of OpenAI's ban against working in the military field. One of the potential use cases proposed by Microsoft is to use DALL-E, OpenAI's image generation model, to train battle management systems. The efficacy, reliability and ethics of such a use of private AI are questioned by various experts. https://theintercept.com/2024/04/10/microsoft-openai-…
Content Type: Examples
Fusion Technology will earn $159.8 million over 5 years to work with the US FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS). It will support the FBI in developing the National Data Exchange ("an investigative tool for agencies to search, analyze, and share criminal justice information"), the Law Enforcement Online System (for information sharing between local, state, tribal, federal, and international criminal justice agencies) and "Crime Data apps".https://www.biometricupdate.com/202404/…
Content Type: Examples
US data analytics firm Palantir, known for its numerous contracts with intelligence agencies, military forces, or law enforcement and immigration authorities, has been awarded a £330m contract to run a new mass database for the UK's health service (NHS). The deal comes four years after Palantir was awarded a £1 contract during the Covid-19 pandemic to build an analytics platform for the NHS. People and organisations across the political spectrum have voiced significant privacy and data…
Content Type: Examples
Over 60 US cities and counties use Fusus, a "police technology platform that merges public and private cameras with predictive policing and other surveillance tools". Private surveillance camera owners are encouraged to enroll in a police-led program that enables the police to control these cameras. The result is an expanstion of policed spaces and integration of all private and public surveillance systems in one comprehensive dragnet. And Fusus' platform does not stop at integrating CCTV…
Content Type: Examples
Notorious military tech company Anduril is pushing its technology to the border surveillance market. Along the US-Mexico border, its surveillance towers "use an artificial intelligence system called Lattice to autonomously identify, detect and track “objects of interest”, such as humans or vehicles. The cameras pan 360 degrees and can detect a human from 2.8km away." But border surveillance technology has been shown to lead people to lengthier and more dangerous routes as they seek to avoid…
Content Type: Report
This policy paper seeks to determine the potential for the existing international private military and security companies (PMSC) regulatory framework to support more effective regulation of surveillance services provided by the private sector.In order to achieve this, and given that this paper addresses an issue that is at the intersection of two domains, it seeks to establish a common language and terminology between security sector governance and surveillance practitioners.In…
Content Type: Examples
When the Los Angeles Police Department opted to monitor the messages posted in forums on Neighbors, a companion app to Amazon's Ring doorbell cameras, the system forwarded over 13,000 messages in just over two years. Research shows, however, that this type of surveillance does a poor job of deterring property crime. A study of Neighbors posts in LA also shows that posters typically live in whiter, more affluent districts, and about 30% of posts did not describe criminal activity, just behaviour…
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: Advocacy
We, the undersigned organisations, seek to draw your attention to aspects of the draft Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (the Directive), and its application to the use of technology and the technology sector, which require strengthening if the Directive is to realise its full potential in respect of this critical global sector that is today responsible for some of the most egregious human rights harms.
The technology and surveillance industries have ushered in an entirely new…
Content Type: Examples
The energy company Cuadrilla used Facebook to surveil anti-fracking protesters in Blackpool and forwarded the gathered intelligence to Lancashire Police, which arrested more than 450 protesters at Cuadrilla's Preston New Road site over a period of three years in a policing operation that cost more than £12 million. Legal experts have called the relationship between fracking companies and the police "increasingly unhealthy" and called on the ICO and the Independent Office for Police Conduct to…
Content Type: Examples
Emails obtained by EFF show that the Los Angeles Police Department contacted Amazon Ring owners specifically asking for footage of protests against racist police violence that took place across the US in the summer of 2020. LAPD signed a formal partnership with Ring and its associated "Neighbors" app in May 2019. Requests for Ring footage typically include the name of the detective, a description of the incident under investigation, and a time period. If enough people in a neighbourhood…
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
This piece is a part of a collection of research that demonstrates how data-intensive systems that are built to deliver reproductive and maternal healthcare are not adequately prioritising equality and privacy.
What are they?
Short Message Services (SMS) are being used in mobile health (MHealth) initiatives which aim to deliver crucial information to expecting and new mothers. These initiatives are being implemented in developing countries experiencing a large percentage of maternal and…
Content Type: Long Read
What if your boss was an algorithm? What would you do if your employer suddenly fired you or reduced your pay without telling you why? And without being willing to give you a reason when you ask for one?
This is not science fiction or some far-fetched reality. Millions of people worldwide are working in the gig economy sector for companies like Uber, Deliveroo, Bolt, Just Eat… And this could be the future of work for people working outside the gig economy, as surveillance technologies are…
Content Type: Video
Update: Pa has since won a settlement from UberPlease note the views expressed in the video are interviewee's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of PI.Pa used to work for Uber. After some time, Uber started asking him to submit a picture of himself to the platform to confirm it was indeed him who had completed the job. However, with time, the frequency of the requests increased. In the beginning, the requests for a picture only happened once a week, but as time went by Pa told us that…
Content Type: News & Analysis
What if we told you that every photo of you, your family, and your friends posted on your social media or even your blog could be copied and saved indefinitely in a database with billions of images of other people, by a company you've never heard of? And what if we told you that this mass surveillance database was pitched to law enforcement and private companies across the world?
This is more or less the business model and aspiration of Clearview AI, a company that only received worldwide…
Content Type: Press release
Today, following an in-depth investigation, the UK Competition and Market Authority (CMA) assessed that the competition concerns can only be addressed by Facebook selling Giphy in its entirety. This is a very significant decision. Facebook, the largest provider of social media sites and display advertising in the UK, acquired Giphy, the largest provider of GIFs. The merger would further increase Facebook’s dominance and Facebook would have benefitted from Giphy’s data collection practices and…
Content Type: Press release
Dear TECNO,
We, the undersigned, don’t believe that privacy should be a luxury. And yet, when TECNO manufacture and sell phones with an outdated operating system, that’s the world TECNO are helping to create.
Our recent investigation into the TECNO Y2 showed that at least one TECNO phone is currently on sale with an operating system that hasn’t received updates since 2013. We are concerned because this is leaving users vulnerable to hundreds of well-known and serious exploits.
The Y2 was…
Content Type: Advocacy
Dear TECNO,
We, the undersigned, don’t believe that privacy should be a luxury. And yet, when TECNO manufacture and sell phones with an outdated operating system, that’s the world TECNO are helping to create.
Our recent investigation into the TECNO Y2 showed that at least one TECNO phone is currently on sale with an operating system that hasn’t received updates since 2013. We are concerned because this is leaving users vulnerable to hundreds of well-known and serious exploits.
The Y2 was…
Content Type: Advocacy
On 6 August 2021, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published its technical specifications and implementation guidance for “Digital Documentation of COVID-19 Certificates: Vaccination Status” (DDCC:VS) following months of consultations. As governments around the world are deploying their own Covid-19 certificates, guidance from the global health agency was expected to set a global approach, and one that prioritises public health. As such, we would expect the WHO to identify what these…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Today, the European Commission has concluded its Phase II in-depth review of the proposed acquisition of the health and fitness tracker Fitbit by Google, deciding that the merger can go through. While we welcome the commitments put forward by Google to mitigate some risks of compromising individuals' rights and competition, PI considers the effects of this merger will further strengthen Google's capacity to exploit our data.
On 15 June 2020, Google formally notified the European Commission of…
Content Type: Long Read
In 2019, we exposed the practices of five menstruation apps that were sharing your most intimate data with Facebook and other third parties. We were pleased to see that upon the publication of our research some of them decided to change their practices. But we always knew the road to effective openness, transparency, informed consent and data minimisation would be a long one when it comes to apps, which for the most part make profit from our menstrual cycle and even sometimes one’s desire to…
Content Type: News & Analysis
An excerpt of this piece was first published in June 2020 in Adbusters, an international not-for-profit magazine produced by a global collective of artists and activists who want to 'shake up complacent consumer culture'.
Big oil. Big tobacco. Big pharma. How did we let ‘big tech’ happen? You would have thought humanity would learn its lesson. That nothing good comes of the mass accumulation and concentration of power into the hands of so few.
The internet was meant to be different. No…
Content Type: Advocacy
International data transfers are an important feature of the present-day global economy. However, when crossing borders, data should also be accompanied by strong and effective privacy and personal data protections. Laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), play an important role in ensuring data flows respect with privacy.
Trade negotiations that cover cross-border data flows can complicate this. All 80 countries that are part of digital trade negotiations should be able to…
Content Type: Long Read
An edited version of this article was originally published on the EDRi website in September 2020.
Introduction
Monopolies, mergers and acquisitions, anti-trust laws. These may seem like tangential or irrelevant issues for privacy and digital rights organisations. But having run our first public petition opposing a big tech merger, we wanted to set out why we think this is an important frontier for people's rights across Europe and indeed across the world.
In June, Google notified the…