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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
Privacy International had suggested the Human Rights Committee consider the following recommendations for the UK government:Review and reform the IPA 2016 to ensure its compliance with Article 17 of the ICCPR, including by removing the powers of bulk surveillance;Abandon efforts to undermine the limited safeguards of the IPA 2016 through the proposed Investigatory Powers Amendment Bill;Refrain from taking any measures that undermine or limit the availability of encrypted communications or other…
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: Advocacy
Privacy International joined civil society efforts to call the South African Parliament not to approve the draft General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill 2023 (GILAB), which was approved by the Cabinet and introduced in Parliament.
The Bill was proposed by the South African government, after the Constitutional Court found the Regulation of Interception of Communications Act of 2002 (RICA) unconstitutional on multiple grounds.
The draft Bill fails to meet the human rights standards on many…
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: 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: 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: News & Analysis
After almost 20 years of presence of the Allied Forces in Afghanistan, the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement in February 2020 on the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan by May 2021. A few weeks before the final US troops were due to leave Afghanistan, the Taliban had already taken control of various main cities. They took over the capital, Kabul, on 15 August 2021, and on the same day the President of Afghanistan left the country.
As seen before with regime…
Content type: Long Read
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK government’s historical mass interception program violates the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. The Court held that the program “did not contain sufficient “end-to-end” safeguards to provide adequate and effective guarantees against arbitrariness and the risk of abuse.” As a result the Court ruled that UK law "did not meet the “quality of law” requirement and was therefore incapable of keeping the “…
Content type: Advocacy
This report is presented by TEDIC (Technology and Community Association) and Privacy International (PI). TEDIC is a non-governmental, non-profit organization, based in Asunción, that promotes and defends human rights on the Internet and extends its networking to Latin America. PI is a London based human rights organization that works globally at the intersection of modern technologies and rights.
TEDIC and PI wish to express some concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to…
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: Long Read
What’s the ruling all about?
The Constitutional Court of South Africa in a historic judgment declared that bulk interception by the South African National Communications Centre is unlawful and invalid. Furthermore, the Constitutional Court found that the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act (RICA) 1) was deficient in failing to provide at least a post-notification procedure for subjects of interception; 2) failed to ensure the…
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
Tucked away in a discrete side street in Hungary’s capital, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL) has since 2006 operated as an official EU agency responsible for developing, implementing, and coordinating training for law enforcement officials from across EU and non-EU countries.
Providing training to some 29,000 officials in 2018 alone, it has seen its budget rocket from €5 million in 2006 to over €9.3 million in 2019, and offers courses in everything from…
Content type: Video
Find out more on our website: https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/4206/qa-eus-top-court-rules-uk-french-and-belgian-mass-surveillance-regimes-must-respect
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Content type: Examples
Mexico is one of the biggest buyers of next-generation surveillance technology. And now data leaked to Forbes indicates it's taken an unprecedented step in becoming the first-known buyer of surveillance technology that silently spies on calls, text messages and locations of any mobile phone user, via a long-vulnerable portion of global telecoms networks known as Signalling System No. 7 (SS7).
The revelation was contained in what an anonymous source close claimed was…
Content type: Examples
The coronavirus action plan announced on March 3, alongside many measures for managing the NHS in the crisis, will also allow the Investigatory Powers Commissioner to appoint judicial commissioners (JCs) on a temporary basis in the event that there are insufficient JCs available to operate the system under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. The Home Secretary, at the request of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, will also be allowed to vary the time allowed for urgent warrants to be…
Content type: News & Analysis
Today, the High Court of South Africa in Pretoria in a historic decision declared that bulk interception by the South African National Communications Centre is unlawful and invalid.
The judgment is a powerful rejection of years of secret and unchecked surveillance by South African authorities against millions of people - irrespective of whether they reside in South Africa.
The case was brought by two applicants, the amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism and journalist Stephen…
Content type: Long Read
Imagine that every time you want to attend a march, religious event, political meeting, protest, or public rally, you must share deeply personal information with police and intelligence agencies, even when they have no reason to suspect you of wrongdoing.
First, you need to go to the police to register; have your photo taken for a biometric database; share the contacts of your family, friends, and colleagues; disclose your finances, health records, lifestyle choices, relationship status, and…
Content type: News & Analysis
El 10 de mayo de 2018, en el marco del 30º período de sesiones del Examen Periódico Universal (EPU) en el Consejo de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas, toca la revisión de Colombia, lo que es una oportunidad Colombia y otros Estados para declarar qué acciones han tomado para mejorar la situación de derechos humanos en sus propios países, para cumplir sus obligaciones internacionales en la materia.
Colombia se encuentra actualmente en un punto de inflexión, debido al proceso de transición…
Content type: News & Analysis
On 10 May 2018, Colombia’s human right record will be reviewed as part of the 30th session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), under the auspices of the Human Rights Council, which provides the opportunity for each State to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to fulfil their human rights obligations.
Colombia is at an important turning point in its history as it transitions from four decades of conflict. This provides…
Content type: Explainer
Phone networks are divided between two networks: the physical and the mobile. The physical runs on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) that serves your home phone. Mobile networks are dominant in the age of communication and are used to relay mobile communications to the PSTN. The most prominent mobile networks are GSM networks (Global System for Mobile communications) and are what we use everyday to communicate with one another. Another system is known as CDMA (Code Division Multiple…
Content type: Press release
Please find attached a copy of the briefing along with promotional photographs with the briefing.
Privacy International has today sent top EU and UK Brexit negotiators* a briefing on their vulnerability to potential surveillance by each other, and others. Brexit negotiations are to begin today.
The global privacy rights NGO has highlighted to the negotiators the risk of sophisticated surveillance capabilities being deployed against each other and by others, and provided…
Content type: Long Read
This week, Privacy International, together with nine other international human rights NGOs, filed submissions with the European Court of Human Rights. Our case challenges the UK government’s bulk interception of internet traffic transiting fiber optic cables landing in the UK and its access to information similarly intercepted in bulk by the US government, which were revealed by the Snowden disclosures. To accompany our filing, we have produced two infographics to illustrate the…
Content type: Press release
Today Sir Stanley Burnton, the Interception of Communications Commissioner, published a highly critical review of the use of Section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 for gathering vast amounts of our communications data in bulk. This obscure clause pre-dates the internet era, but has been used for nearly two decades for mass surveillance. Today is the first time that these powers have been criticised by an independent statutory body. IOCCO is critical of the Government's use of these…
Content type: Long Read
1984: A broad law, a broad power and a whole lot of secrecy
In the wake of litigation brought by Privacy International (‘PI’) and as the Government prepared to introduce the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill (‘IP Bill’) in November 2015, there was a cascade of ‘avowals’- admissions that the intelligence agencies carry out some highly intrusive surveillance operations under powers contained in outdated and confusing legislation.
It is disappointing that it has been almost six months since…
Content type: Long Read
Written by: Maria del Pilar Saenz
With a raft of recent scandals involving proven and possible abuses of surveillance systems by state institutions, there is a clear need to generate policy and practice in Colombia that promotes respect for human rights. It is necessary to keep this in mind as an emerging public policy discussion on cybersecurity led by CONPES (The National Council for Economic and Social Policy) begins in Colombia. This series of reforms will serve as the policy basis…
Content type: Long Read
This guest piece was written by Jessamine Pacis of the Foundation for Media Alternatives. It does not necessarily reflect the views or position of Privacy International.
Introduction
With a history immersed in years of colonialism and tainted by martial law, Philippine society is no stranger to surveillance. Even now, tales of past regimes tracking their citizens’ every move find their way into people’s everyday conversations. This, for the most part, has kept Filipinos…
Content type: Long Read
Written by: Centre for Internet and Society
This guest piece was written by representatives of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). It does not necessarily reflect the views or position of Privacy International.
Introduction
As part of the State of the Surveillance project, CIS conducted a review of surveillance law, policy, projects, and trends in India. Below we provide a snap shot of key legal provisions governing surveillance in India and touch on…