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Content type: Long Read
The fourth edition of PI’s Guide to International Law and Surveillance provides the most hard-hitting past and recent results on international human rights law that reinforce the core human rights principles and standards on surveillance. We hope that it will continue helping researchers, activists, journalists, policymakers, and anyone else working on these issues.The new edition includes, among others, entries on (extra)territorial jurisdiction in surveillance, surveillance of public…
Content type: Report
First published in 2017, PI’s Guide to International Law and Surveillance is an attempt to collate relevant excerpts from these judgments and reports into a single principled guide that will be regularly updated. This is the fourth edition of the Guide. It has been updated it to reflect the most relevant legal developments until March 2024.The Guide aspires to be a handy reference tool for anyone engaging in campaigning, advocacy, and scholarly research, on these issues. The fourth…
Content type: Advocacy
While PI recognises the threats posed by cybercrime, PI reiterates the need both for a narrow scope for the proposed Convention, focusing solely on core cyber-dependent crimes, as well as for effective safeguards throughout the entire treaty to ensure human rights are respected and protected, especially in the areas of privacy and freedom of expression. Throughout the negotiations most of proposals by Member States and other stakeholders aimed at restricting the scope of the treaty and…
Content type: Advocacy
BackgroundThe Snowden revelations and subsequent litigation have repeatedly identified unlawful state surveillance by UK agencies. In response, the UK Parliament passed the highly controversial Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA), which authorised massive, suspicionless surveillance on a scale never seen before, with insufficient safeguards or independent oversight.Privacy International led legal challenges to this mass surveillance regime both before and after the Act became law. The Act…
Content type: Examples
Cellebrite, which provides technology to unlock phones and access their data, asks its government agency customers to keep both its technology and the fact that they used it secret, a leaked company training video shows. Such a request violates the rights of the public to expect that authorities are transparent when asking judges to authorise searches. In the video, the company employee claims that disclosure could hinder law enforcement and help criminals.https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/19/…
Content type: Long Read
In June 2023, the UK government announced its proposal to expand its surveillance powers by, among others, forcing communications operators to undermine encryption or abstain from providing security software updates globally. Building on our response to the government’s plans, this piece explains why what they want to do puts every one of us at risk.
Why your trust (to technologies you use) matters
Surveillance and privacy are complex concepts to grasp – it’s part of the appeal to us at PI.…
Content type: Advocacy
We are responding to the UK Government's consultation to expand its powers around Technical Capabilities Notices and National Security Notices.
Background
Following Edward Snowden's revelations about the illegal and expansive secret powers of the US and UK intelligence agencies, the UK Government took the opportunity to, rather than reflect on what powers are proportionate in the modern era, to expand its arsenal of surveillance powers.
One of the powers it added was the ability to issue…
Content type: Advocacy
This was submitted by PI and EFF for the sixth session of the Ad Hoc Committee, which is due to consider the text in August 2023.
Our submission covers provisions in the chapters related to procedural measures and law enforcement, as well as international cooperation of the proposed UN Cybercrime treaty (full title: Comprehensive international convention on countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes). We also provide general comments on Article 54…
Content type: Advocacy
PI Opening Statement at PEGA Hearing on "Spyware and ePrivacy"
[check against delivery]
Thank you very much for offering us the opportunity to give evidence before this Committee for a second time.
Privacy International (PI) is a London-based non-profit that researches and advocates globally against government and corporate abuses of data and technology. For years we have been tracking the surveillance industry, challenging unlawful surveillance before national courts as well as the Court of…
Content type: Report
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) contributes significantly to security and privacy. For that reason, PI has long been in favour of the deployment of robust E2EE.Encryption is a way of securing digital communications using mathematical algorithms that protect the content of a communication while in transmission or storage. It has become essential to our modern digital communications, from personal emails to bank transactions. End-to-end encryption is a form of encryption that is even more private.…
Content type: Examples
Just as China uses technology system called "Integrated Joint Operations Platform" to control and surveil the persecuted population of Uighurs while restricting their movement and branding dissent as "terrorism", the Israeli military is using facial recognition and a massive database of personal information to control millions of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. In November 2021, NSO Group's Pegasus spyware was found on the phones of six Palestinian human rights activists, three of whom…
Content type: Examples
The Israeli minister of public security has joined police in denying claims in an article in Calcalist that the country's police force have used NSO Group's Pegasus software to spy on the phones of people who led protests against former premier Benjamin Netanyahu. Calcalist reported that the surveillance was carried out without court supervision or oversight of how the data was used. The daily Haaretz newspaper also reported that it had seen a 2013 invoice in which NSO billed police @@2.7…
Content type: Advocacy
Despite repeated recommendations by the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly to review, amend or enact national laws to ensure respect and protection of the right to privacy, national laws are often inadequate and do not regulate, limit or prohibit surveillance powers of government agencies as well as data exploitative practices of companies.
Even when laws are in place, they are seldom enforced. In fact PI notes how it is often only following legal challenges in national or…
Content type: Video
Links
Edin mentioned 'a journalist and her son' being targeted; their names are Carmen and Emilio Aristegui. You can find out more about people targeted in Mexico
Keep up to date with ongoing litigation against NSO Group around the globe
Read our report, together with Amnesty International and SOMO, on NSO Group's corporate structure
Find more examples of harm involving NSO group
As revelations about the abuses of NSO Group's spyware continue, we took a look at what…
Content type: Explainer
Following sustained reporting by researchers, journalists and activists around the world, including recent disclosures exposed by the PegasusProject, the surveillance industry is facing scrutiny like never before.
In the latest move, eighteen U.S. lawmakers have today demanded that the U.S. government imposes sanctions on four non-US surveillance companies for, as they mention in their letter, facilitating “disappearance, torture and murder of human rights activists and journalists”.
The move…
Content type: Press release
Amnesty International, Privacy International and The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) have published a report uncovering NSO Group’s entire corporate structure, tracking the global money trail of both public and private investment into the lucrative spyware company.
Amnesty International and other rights groups have documented dozens of cases of NSO Group’s products being used by repressive governments across the world to put activists, journalists, and opposition…
Content type: Report
In this briefing, Amnesty International, PI and The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) discuss the corporate structure of NSO group, one of the surveillance industry's well-known participants. The lack of transparency around NSO Group’s corporate structure and the lack of information about the relevant jurisdictions within which it operates are significant barriers in seeking prevention of, and accountability for, human rights violations reportedly linked to NSO Group’s…
Content type: Explainer
What is hacking?
Hacking refers to finding vulnerabilities in electronic systems, either to report and repair them, or to exploit them.
Hacking can help to identify and fix security flaws in devices, networks and services that millions of people may use. But it can also be used to access our devices, collect information about us, and manipulate us and our devices in other ways.
Hacking comprises a range of ever-evolving techniques. It can be done remotely, but it can also include physical…
Content type: Explainer
What is an IMSI catcher?
‘IMSI’ stands for ‘international mobile subscriber identity’, a number unique to your SIM card. IMSI catchers are also known as ‘Stingrays’.
An ‘IMSI catcher’ is a device that locates and then tracks all mobile phones that are connected to a phone network in its vicinity, by ‘catching’ the unique IMSI number.
It does this by pretending to be a mobile phone tower, tricking mobile phones nearby to connect to it, enabling it to then intercept the data from that phone…
Content type: Report
Human rights defenders across the world have been facing increasing threats and harms as result of the use of digital and technological tools used by governments and companies which enable the surveillance, monitoring and tracking of individuals and communities. They are continuously at risk of violence, intimidation and surveillance as a direct consequence of the work they do. Such surveillance has been shown to lead to arbitrary detention, sometimes to torture and possibly to extrajudicial…
Content type: Video
Links
Find out more about general warrants and out case
Listen to our last podcast with Caroline - about a ruling in the European Union's top court that UK, French and Belgian mass surveillance regimes must respect privacy: Judgement Day
And make sure we can keep taking these fights to court: support.privacyinternational.org
You can listen and subscribe to the podcast where ever you normally find your podcasts:
Spotify
Apple podcasts
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Pocket Casts…
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: Long Read
On 8 January 2021, the UK High Court issued a judgment in the case of Privacy International v. Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) appeared as interested parties to the case.
After our initial reaction, below we answer some of the main questions relating to the case.
NOTE: This post reflects our initial reaction to the judgment and may be updated.
What’s the ruling all about?
In…
Content type: Frequently Asked Questions
On 8 January 2021, the UK High Court issued a judgment in the case of Privacy International v. Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) appeared as interested parties to the case.
After our initial reaction, below we answer some of the main questions relating to the case.
NOTE: This post reflects our initial reaction to the judgment and may be updated.