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Content type: News & Analysis
The major overhaul of data protection laws in Europe is finally over, after three years of arduous and sustained political and lobbying activity by all those with a major stake and interest, including us at Privacy International (See our initial analysis of the two laws in 2012). We welcome this long overdue closure, but is this 91-articled, 200-paged piece of legislation been worth the enormous effort and no doubt millions of euros, dollars and pounds spent on it?
The legislative package…
Content type: Press release
Statement by European Digital Rights (EDRi), Bits of Freedom, Digitale Gesellschaft e.V, Digital Rights Ireland and Privacy International following the vote of the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee on the Data Protection
In January 2012, the European Commission, following extensive consultations, published a draft Regulation and a Directive to create a strong framework for data protection in the EU. The initiative had three priorities – modernisation of the legal framework for…
Content type: News & Analysis
Sometimes it takes an unexpected stranger to remind you what you have, and what you are at risk of losing. Roman Zakharov, a Russian publisher who challenged Russia’s surveillance legislation, is that stranger for many Brits and Europeans. The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights judgement on Friday 4 December 2015 was remarkable, not because it tore up the rule book on the jurisprudence surrounding state surveillance in the Council of Europe, but because it followed…
Content type: News & Analysis
This guest post was written by Nighat Dad and Adnan Chaudhry of Digital Rights Foundation.
It is the role of the state to protect its citizens from threats to their life and liberty. But in protecting its citizens, the state’s own aims cannot be counterproductive and erode the security found in rights like privacy and freedom of expression that are vital to a democratic system.
However, it has too often been the case that governments will pursue and enact legislation that provides more…
Content type: News & Analysis
This is a guest piece. It does not necessarily reflect the views or position of Privacy International.
In 1997, plans for a Civil Identification Registry (RIC) were signed into law in Brazil, promising to unify the 27 regional identification registries into a centralized federal one by 2020. The law, which was only enacted in 2010, continues to face obstacles to its implementation, but in 2014 there was a renewed wave of support for the project from the Ministry of Justice…
Content type: News & Analysis
Photo: Flickr/Elvert Barnes. Some rights reserved.
In the wider civil society space, the opportunities for travel come thick and fast. From the multi-stakeholder perspective, the Internet Governance Forum will be held during November in João Pessoa, Brazil. There is the Stockholm Internet Forum in, naturally, Stockholm. In freedom of expression there is the International Freedom of Expression Exchange Strategy Conference in Trinidad & Tobago, while End…
Content type: News & Analysis
Today the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that mass surveillance is in violation of the right to privacy and that a legal system that provides no legal redress against interference with someone's privacy falls short of EU human rights standards.
The Court was seized following a complaint initiated by Mr Schrems to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner about the transfer of his Facebook data from Ireland to the US under the now defunct “…
Content type: News & Analysis
Over a dozen international companies are supplying powerful communications surveillance technology in Colombia, according to a Privacy International investigation released today featuring original documentation. Over the past few decades, companies primarily from Israel, the US, and the UK have worked with Colombian partners to expand the Government's surveillance capacities. This is despite evidence that the Government is undertaking unlawful surveillance of Colombians.
The…
Content type: News & Analysis
“We always assume we are being watched. It is part of our understanding,” explained Father Alberto. The clergyman knows what it's like to live under surveillance. Father Alberto is Executive Secretary of the Inter-ecclesiastical Commission for Justice and Peace in Colombia, which supports displaced and conflict-affected communities in their struggle for justice. The CIJP also works in the restive Urabá region, where they document and litigate on the links between neo-paramilitary groups,…
Content type: News & Analysis
Every government seems to want to spy in Pakistan. The US' National Security Agency (NSA) tapped the fibre optic cables landing in Karachi, among others, and used 55 million phone records harvested from Pakistani telecommunications providers for an analysis exercise. The United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had a store of SIM keys from Mobilink and Telenor networks, two of the country's biggest providers.
But the Pakistani government, specifically the…
Content type: News & Analysis
On July 6th, the company Hacking Team was hacked: over 400GB of administrative documents, source code and emails are now available for download.
Documents from the hack confirm once again the claims made in our report Their Eyes on Me, the Moroccan intelligence services made use of Hacking Team's spyware 'Remote Control System' to target those whom they perceive as their opponents. The documents show the two intelligence agencies in the country have been renewing their contracts and…
Content type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI). PI is a human rights organisation that works to advance and promote the right to privacy and fight surveillance around the world. PI wishes to bring concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to privacy in Estonia before the Human Rights Council for consideration in Estonia's upcoming Universal Periodic Review.
Content type: News & Analysis
The Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance Exports (CAUSE) has today released a new policy paper calling on the EU to take the opportunity to update its Dual Use Regulation to ensure that surveillance technologies are not exported from Europe and used for human rights violations.
The proposals have been developed by the international secretariat of CAUSE, a coalition of NGOs consisting of Access, Amnesty International, Digitale Gesellschaft, Human Rights Watch, the…
Content type: Advocacy
Following today's Justice Ministers Council meeting in Luxembourg where an agreement was reached on the proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Privacy International and European Digital Rights (EDRi) issued the following statement:
In January 2012, the European Commission, following extensive consultations, published a draft Regulation. The initiative had three priorities - modernisation of the legal framework for the protection of personal data,…
Content type: News & Analysis
Lebanon was part of the drafting committee for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and by co-sponsoring both UN General Assembly resolutions on the right to privacy in the digital age (December 2013 and December 2014), Lebanon has recently reaffirmed its commitment to its obligations to uphold the right to privacy.
And yet, Lebanon's progressive positions on the right to privacy at the UN could not be further away from the situation in the country itself.
Once seen as…
Content type: News & Analysis
This guest blog is written by Hisham Almiraat, co-founder of Mamfakinch.com and Director of the 'Association des droits numériques' (ADN), an organisation working on human rights and technology in Morocco.
Mamfakinch was launched in February 2011, in the wake of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. Its goal was to offer an open forum for all dissenting voices. The website received over a million unique visitors in the first few weeks after it was launched. It quickly…
Content type: News & Analysis
Privacy laws around the world are under threat by ambitious governments and voracious industry. Sixty-six privacy, digital rights and consumer rights organisations from around the world have joined forces to push back against attempts to weaken European privacy legislation. The coalition today wrote to the President of the European Commission (the civil service of the European Union) to demand that high levels of privacy protections must be respected in Europe's ongoing revision of its data…
Content type: News & Analysis
Privacy International today is releasing a report about surveillance in Morocco, featuring four interviews with individuals who have been subjected to state surveillance. Stepping away from our traditional approach to documenting surveillance, we decided to give a platform to the people who have been targeted.
The interviews reveal a multi-layered oppressive system, where law enforcement agents film the keyhole of your door and interrogate your neighbours where; nationalist hacker groups get…
Content type: News & Analysis
German surveillance technology company Trovicor played a central role in expanding the Ethiopian government's communications surveillance capacities, according to a joint investigation by Privacy International and netzpolitik.org.
The company, formerly part of Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), provided equipment to Ethiopia's National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) in 2011 and offered to massively expand the government's ability to intercept and store internet…
Content type: News & Analysis
This Sunday is International Women's Day. You could celebrate the considerable progress in legislating for women's equal rights. You could join a protest against political and legal inequality, discrepancies in women's access to healthcare, education and other social goods. You could thank your mom for delivering you.
Here at Privacy International, we want to commemorate the importance of this day by looking at some of the ways surveillance technologies can be used to control women and how the…
Content type: News & Analysis
The focus on the right to privacy continues at the United Nations, with Kenya, Turkey, and Sweden being recently challenged over their surveillance practices during the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review of States' human rights records.
The explicit mention of the right to privacy in recommendations submitted by Slovenia and the Netherlands during the review of Sweden, in the recommendation by Estonia during Turkey's review, and Liechtenstein's recommendations to…