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Content type: Press release
The United Nations General Assembly should approve a new resolution and make clear that indiscriminate surveillance is never consistent with the right to privacy, five human rights organizations said in a November 21, 2013 letter to members of the United Nations General Assembly.
After heated negotiations, the draft resolution on digital privacy initiated by Brazil and Germany emerged on November 21 relatively undamaged, despite efforts by the …
Content type: Press release
Privacy International welcomes the resolution introduced on Friday by Germany and Brazil to the UN General Assembly, affirming the international human right to privacy and its essential nature to the realization of other rights, and condemning mass State surveillance of individuals around the world.
Should the resolution be adopted, it will be the first major statement by a UN body on privacy in 25 years, since General Comment 16 in 1988 by the Human Rights Committee. It is also the first…
Content type: News & Analysis
What a difference a few months, and some intelligence agency leaks, make.
In early June an important report warning of increasing State surveillance was submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council. It was met with barely more than scant attention. Days later, Edward Snowden’s leaks hit the front page of the Guardian, and woke the world up to how intelligence agencies in the US and UK are using questionable legal justifications to spy on their own…
Content type: News & Analysis
There's a small storm brewing in Switzerland around the private surveillance industry, as recent revelations have detailed how the country is quietly becoming a centre for companies to export their spy technologies around the world.
After initial media reports last month detailed how companies like Gamma International, sellers of the notorious malware suite FinFisher, are seeking licenses to export their technologies from Switzerland, we wrote to over 70 Swiss lawmakers,…
Content type: News & Analysis
For some time now, Gamma International has been criticised for exporting dangerous surveillance technologies from the UK to repressive regimes. Now, we are learning that the company is taking its show on the road, as recent reports have said that Gamma are now attempting to export its products, including the spyware FinFisher, out of Switzerland.
With sales premises registered at a site just outside the Swiss capital Bern, Gamma has now applied to the Swiss Secretariat for…
Content type: Press release
A complaint filed with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) against Gamma International, a UK-based company accused of selling surveillance spyware for governments, will proceed and has been accepted for consideration, the UK National Contact Point (NCP) for the OECD announced.
The decision by the NCP is instrumental in the ongoing campaign to hold surveillance companies accountable for their products and the potential enabling of governments to commit human rights…
Content type: Press release
Privacy International, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Bahrain Watch and Reporters without Borders filed formal complaints with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the UK and Germany against two surveillance companies on Friday 1st February. The British and German National Contact Points are being asked to investigate Gamma International and Trovicor respectively with regards to both companies’…