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Content type: News & Analysis
On 24 October 2019, the Swedish government submitted a new draft proposal to give its law enforcement broad hacking powers. On 18 November 2019, the Legal Council (“Lagråd”), an advisory body assessing the constitutionality of laws, approved the draft proposal.
Privacy International believes that even where governments conduct hacking in connection with legitimate activities, such as gathering evidence in a criminal investigation, they may struggle to demonstrate that hacking as…
Content type: Long Read
This research is the result of a collaboration between Grace Tillyard, a doctoral researcher in the Media, Communications and Cultural Studies department at Goldsmiths College, London, and Privacy International.
Social Protection Systems in the Digital Age
In the digital age, governments across the world are building technologically integrated programmes to allow citizens to access welfare payments. While smart and digital technologies hold the potential to streamline administrative…
Content type: News & Analysis
Photo: The European Union
“Border Externalisation”, the transfer of border controls to foreign countries, has in the last few years become the main instrument through which the European Union seeks to stop migratory flows to Europe. Similar to the strategy being implemented under Trump’s administration, it relies on utilising modern technology, training, and equipping authorities in third countries to export the border far beyond its shores.
It is enabled by the adoption…
Content type: News & Analysis
Photo by Francesco Bellina
The wars on terror and migration have seen international funders sponsoring numerous border control missions across the Sahel region of Africa. Many of these rely on funds supposed to be reserved for development aid and lack vital transparency safeguards. In the first of a series, freelance journalist Giacomo Zandonini sets the scene from Niger.
Surrounded by a straw-yellow stretch of sand, the immense base of the border control mobile company of Maradi, in southern…
Content type: News & Analysis
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
In May, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston invited all interested governments, civil society organisations, academics, international organisations, activists, corporations and others, to provide written input for his thematic report on the human rights impacts, especially on those living in poverty, of the introduction of digital technologies in the implementation of national social protection…
Content type: News & Analysis
Photo: The European Union
On 2 September 2019, Privacy International, together with 60 other organisations, signed an open letter to the European Parliament to express our deep concern about upcoming EU policy proposals which undermine the EU’s founding values of human rights, peace and disarmament.
Since 2017, the EU has diverted funds towards security research and security capacity-building in countries around the world. The proposal for the EU's next budget (2021-2027) will…
Content type: News & Analysis
Privacy International has joined over 30 organisations working with migrants and refugees to write to the newly appointed British Home Secretary to raise a number of pressing issues, which require action if the immigration and asylum system is to regain the trust of the public.
The letter below was sent to the Home Secretary on Wednesday, 30 July 2019.
Find out more about PI’s work to demand a more humane approach to immigration based on the principles of fairness, accessibility, and respect…
Content type: News & Analysis
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency at the centre of carrying out President Trump’s “zero tolerance” approach to immigration enforcement and family separation, has for years been contracting a US surveillance company to intercept peoples’ communications across the United States.
The wide potential scope for the use of the powers raises concerns about their use for the real-time surveillance of people, families, and communities caught up in Trump’s immigration…
Content type: News & Analysis
According to the International Organization for Migration, an estimated 258 million people are international migrants – that is, someone who changes their country of usual residence, That’s one in every 30 people on earth.
These unprecedented movements levels show no sign of slowing down. It is predicted that by 2050, there will be 450 million migrants across the world.
Nowadays, it is politically acceptable to demonise migrants, and countless leaders have spewed divisive and xenophobic…
Content type: Long Read
As calls for a ‘secure southern border’ are amplified in the US by politicians and pundits, Silicon Valley techies are coming out in force to proffer swanky digital solutions in the place of 30-foot steel slats or concrete blocks.
One such company is Anduril Industries, named after a sword in Lord of the Rings, which represents a symbol of hidden power.
Over recent months, Anduril Industries frontman Palmer Luckey has been making the PR rounds to promote his company’s version of a border wall…