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Content type: Report
The methodology employed for this report consists primarily of in-depth interviews held with grassroots political workers and representatives of collectives. The researchers interviewed 14 individuals from various social justice causes such as womens’ rights, climate change, transgender rights, students’ rights and the right to universal internet access in Pakistan. The experiences they have shared with the interviewers along with the real-time developments in the country’s law and order…
Content type: Examples
According to police plans to enhance “school safety”, security cameras and facial recognition will monitor children in Hong Kong in class and around educational facilities. The move is part of a trend also found in China, India, and the US toward mining children’s data, even though few benefits have been found.Article: Hong Kong schools adopt facial recognition and security camerasPublication: Biometric UpdateWriter: Christ Burt
Content type: Examples
The Focus1, or FuSi, from the US-based startup BrainCo, claims to measure how closely students are paying attention via electrodes that detect brain activity and send the data to teachers’ computers or a mobile app. Lights on the headband glow red, yellow, or blue to signify the level of engagement. A backlash against the headband has begun in China, where a local authorities ordered a school to suspend its use after it was profiled in the Wall Street Journal. Among other issues, it’s not clear…
Content type: Examples
The Nigerian startup uLesson, which began by offering pre-recorded lessons on dongles, now delivers livestreamed interactive video classes to learners in a number of African countries as well as the US and UK. One of uLesson's investors is Tencent, which also backed at least three Chinese EdTech companies between 2018 and 2021 before China began requiring companies teaching compulsory primary and middle school subjects in China to register as "nonprofit institutions".Article: Chinese-backed…
Content type: Explainer
The Free to Protest Guide Pakistan has been created by adapting Privacy International's (PI) Free to Protest Guide UK according to the laws and policies of Pakistan, in collaboration with PI and local activists in Pakistan.The Guide has been published in English, Urdu, Punjabi and Pashto.DISCLAIMER: This guide forms part of PI's global work to highlight the range of surveillance tools that law enforcement can use in the protest context, and how data protection laws can help guarantee…
Content type: News & Analysis
Privacy International (PI) is concerned by developments in Pakistan regarding the enactment of the Draft Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 and the opaque process which will see the bill become law.
The Bill was published on 19 May 2023 by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication ('MITT'). However no open and inclusive consultation was open for comments to be submitted to the MITT. In a concerning development it was reported that the Bill was approved by the Federal…
Content type: Examples
Vaccinating a large portion of the population against COVID-19 is a critical step toward curbing the pandemic – within China and around the world. But setting population percentage targets without clear protections for people’s rights opens up the possibility of authorities abusing the quota to force jabs. And this is exactly what has played out in recent months across the country.
The Chinese government’s forced vaccination tactics, which go far beyond “mandates” being debated and discussed…
Content type: Examples
Several of the Chinese companies producing personal protective equipment such as face masks were shown via undercover video footage to be using Uighur labour under a government labour transfer programme that pays regional subsidies for each worker taken in. The equipment is being shipped all over the world, including to the US and Latin America. In the course of the pandemic, the number of companies producing PPE in Xinjiang has risen from four to 51. At Medwell, one such company, Uighurs are…
Content type: Examples
TrustNet Pakistan, the country’s only digital trust foundation, has begun work alongside many other global technology companies on a digital vaccination verification platform called CovidCreds. The initiative supports projects that use privacy-preserving verifiable credentials. TrustNet is working on a solution called Vaccify to provide verification that it’s safe for people to travel out of Pakistan. The system is expected to work via a mobile phone app that can digitally receive test results…
Content type: Examples
Anger spread across Chinese social media after officials in the eastern city of Hangzhou suggested they would create a permanent version of its smartphone-based health rating app, developed with help from Alibaba, to curb coronavirus spread. Shortly before, Baidu’s chief executive proposed new rules to limit the collection of sensitive personal information in fighting the coronavirus.
Publication: Wall Street Journal
Writer: Liza Lin
Content type: Examples
A detailed analysis of Pakistan’s app, which was developed by the Ministry of IT and Telecom and the National Information Technology Board and which offers dashboards for each province and state, self-assessment tools, and popup hygiene reminders, finds a number of security issues. Among them: the app uses hard-coded credentials, which it sends insecurely, to communicate with the government server, and it downloads the exact coordinates of infected people in order to provide a map of their…
Content type: Examples
The lack of data protection laws and the absence of a privacy commission are contributing factors to Pakistan’s failure to investigate or remedy security flaws in the country’s recently-launched COVID-19 tracking technology, which partially depends on a system originally developed to combat terrorism. While there are no reported cases of harassment or targeting based on the leak online of the personal details of thousands of COVID-19 volunteers, the lack of response fails to boost citizens’…
Content type: Examples
China is adding new features to its coronavirus surveillance app, which has helped many workers and employers return to their former lives, and looks likely to become a permanent fixture. Zhou Jiangyong, the Communist Party secretary of the eastern city of Hangzhou, has said the city's app, which it has begun linking to citizens' medical records, should become a beloved "intimate health guardian" for residents, who can use it to schedule hospital visits. The authorities are considering…
Content type: Examples
The Chinese city of Hangzhou is considering making the app it requires residents to download and install for the COVID-19 crisis and that controls whether and where residents may travel a permanent fixture to create a "firewall to enhance people's health and immunity". Other countries may follow suit. Concerns include function creep, institutionalised geo-tracking, and the retention of data long after its original purpose has been fulfilled.
https://www.newsweek.com/covid-19-contact-tracing-…
Content type: Examples
As the first confirmed coronavirus case in Pakistan, Yahyah Jaffery became a pariah after his identity, photograph, and home address were leaked on social media. Similar leaks about dozens of other patients and medical staff followed. The contact tracing system being used for coronavirus was originally developed by the country's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) to combat terrorism; it is based on a new data hub in Islamabad that will collect information from the ISI tracking system and share…
Content type: Examples
The Australian journalist Chris Buckley, who reports for the New York Times, was forced to leave China on April 10 after 24 years of reporting on the country, bringing the number of journalists forced out of the country in the last year to 19.
After travelling to Wuhan to report on the unfolding outbreak on the day the city was locked down in January, he was told to stop when his press card expired in February. The division of the Foreign Ministry responsible for international media…
Content type: Examples
Amazon has spent $10 million to buy 1,500 cameras to take the temperature of workers from the Chinese firm Zhejiang Dahua Technology Company even though the US previously blacklisted Dahua because it was alleged to have helped China detain and monitor the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.
The cameras work by comparing a person’s radiation with a separate infrared calibration device and uses face detection technology to make sure it is looking for heat in the right part of the subjects…
Content type: Examples
Our partners from Digital Rights Foundation in Pakistan wrote a piece analysing cases of privacy violations, misinformation, hate speech and other cases. As they said, the situation with regards to the Coronavirus is still developing in the country and Digital Rights Foundation, are keeping an eye out for the developments regarding the disease and also assessing how the digital rights sphere is being affected.
Link: https://digitalrightsfoundation.pk/protecting-your-digital-rights-during-the-…
Content type: Examples
The Pakistani government has repurposed a system designed by the country's spy agency, inter-Services Intelligence for tracking down terrorists to trace suspected COVID-19 cases. Prime minister Imran Khan has said that efficient tracking and testing of coronavirus-infected people is the only way to reopen the country's closed businesses.
Source: https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/pakistan-government-isi-system-track-suspected-covid-19-cases-pm-imran-khan-1670378-2020-04-24
Writer: Press…
Content type: Examples
An Excel file containing complete data pertaining to patients tested for coronavirus in the cities Quetta and Taftan in the the Balochistan region of Pakistan has been circulating in WhatsApp groups about Balochistan. The file contains information such as names, phone numbers, age address and other identifying information for the patients. The leaked data puts the patients at risk of personal harm and social stigma, even after recovery. Balochistan government officials say the data leaked…
Content type: Examples
The Guangzhou Public Transportation Group has installed a biometric tablet next to bus drivers' seats so they can check the temperature and identity of every passenger who boards. The tablets will also photograph each passenger, allowing them to be identified by China's facial recognition network in the hope of helping control the spread of the novel coronavirus by enabling contact tracing for anyone displaying symptoms. The Group claims the data so gathered will only be used in the interests…
Content type: Examples
An official directive from the Pakistani provincial government of Sindh titled "COVID-19 Mobile Registration System for Needy People" describes its use of multiple databases to identify those in need of welfare funds and disburse cash to them by combining taxpayers' data from the Federal Board of Revenue, travel histories from the Federal Investigation Agency, and financial information from the State Bank of Pakistan. Recipients need to create cellphone accounts via the service provider Jazz in…
Content type: Examples
Mobile phone users in Pakistan have discovered that the government is accessing, without consent, their mobile phone location and call records despite legal questions about whether doing so violates the country's constitution. After users reported that patients testing positive for COVID-19 returned home, the government sent SMS "Karuna Alert" messages to some of their friends, family, and neighbours; the Pakistan Telecom Authority confirmed it had sent the messages using patients' registered…
Content type: Examples
After Pakistani residents queried whether messages labelled "CoronaALERT" sent out via SMS were legitimate, telecom authorities confirmed that it was authentic, being sent to selected individuals at the request of the Ministry of Health under the Digital Parkistan programme. Individuals were chosen because they might have come in contact with infected individuals during travel or in specific locations. It is not clear, however, what the criteria were for selecting individuals at risk,…
Content type: Examples
The Chinese Communist Party has worked to control the narrative and deflect blame during the coronavirus crisis by drawing on its state and CCP-owned media to disseminate content via its English-language Facebook pages and Twitter feed (even though these platforms are banned in China). China has emphasised rapid recovery and successful treatments, as well as positive stories about efforts such as building makeshift hospitals at speed. Later stories also seek to position China as a world leader…
Content type: Examples
Among the Chinese companies making efforts to help the country respond to the coronavirus are the technology giants Alibaba, Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent, Xiaomi, and Foxconn. In order to fight misinformation, Baidu created a map layer on top of its standard Map App that shows real-time locations of confirmed and suspected cases of the virus so that people can avoid hot spots. Qihoo 360 has launched a platform travellers can use to check if anyone on their recent train or plane trips has since…
Content type: Examples
China: Manufacturer Telepower adds fever detection and facial recognition to point-of-sale terminals
According to a company announcement, Telepower Communication (Telpo), a leading Chinese manufacturer of smart point-of-sale systems and intelligent hardware, has integrated into its terminals new features to support a wide variety of contactless use cases. The company’s family of terminals for catering, retail, payment, security, and other applications, include biometric, fever-detecting facial recognition, and ticket validation technology. The technology supports accurate identification of up…
Content type: Examples
China's airport screening, which includes scanning all arriving passengers for fever using “noncontact thermal imaging” since late January and requiring passengers to report their health status on arrival, look reassuring but won't stop the spread of the novel coronavirus because experience with other diseases shows it's very rare for screeners to detect infected passengers (even where they exist) and it has little impact on the course of an outbreak when they do. Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist…
Content type: Examples
Software on smartphones dictates whether an individual should be quarantined. Chinese citizens in 200 cities, beginning with Hangzhou, are required to install the Alipay Health Code app, developed by Hangzhou's local government with the help of Alipay owner Ant Financial, on their smartphones. After users fill in a form with personal information including name, national ID number, contact information, and details of recent travel, the software generates a QR code in one of three colors. Green…
Content type: Examples
Software on smartphones dictates whether an individual should be quarantined. Chinese citizens in 200 cities, beginning with Hangzhou, are required to install the Alipay Health Code app, developed by Hangzhou's local government with the help of Alipay owner Ant Financial, on their smartphones. After users fill in a form with personal details, the software generates a QR code in one of three colors. Green enables its holder to move about unrestricted. Those with yellow codes may be asked to stay…