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Content type: News & Analysis
Our intervention comes on the back of mounting evidence that the South African state’s surveillance powers have been abused, and so-called “checks & balances” in RICA have failed to protect citizens’ constitutional right to privacy.
Among our core arguments are:
That people have a right to be notified when their communications have been intercepted so that they can take action when they believe their privacy has been unlawfully breached. Currently RICA prevents such notification, unlike…
Content type: Advocacy
This Universal Periodic Review (“UPR”) stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International and Paradigm Initiative.
Together Privacy International and Paradigm Initiative wish to bring their concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to privacy in Nigeria before the Human Rights Council for consideration in Nigeria’s upcoming review at the 31st session of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review.
Content type: News & Analysis
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As part of Privacy International’s mission, we aim to take the issues emerging from our research and that of our partners to new spaces of debate and to the attention of stakeholders at the national, regional and international level.
In April 2018, Privacy International was able to engage for the first time with the African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR) at its 62nd Ordinary Session, which took place in Nouakchott, Mauritania.
The right to privacy does…
Content type: Long Read
To celebrate Data Privacy Week, we spent the week discussing privacy and issues related to control, data protection, surveillance, and identity. Join the conversation on Twitter using #dataprivacyweek.
Do you live in a “smart city”? Chances are, you probably do (or at least your city claims to be). But do you know what exactly makes your city “smart”, beyond the marketing term? And what does this have to do with privacy?
Companies and governments will tell you that the more cameras, sensors…
Content type: Advocacy
Este informe es presentado por la Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) y Privacy International (PI). La Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) es una organización no gubernamental, sin nes de lucro, ubicada en Buenos Aires, que promueve los derechos civiles y sociales en Argentina y otros países latinoamericanos. Fue fundada en 1995 con el objetivo de fortalecer una cultura jurídica e institucional que garantice los derechos fundamentales de la gente, basado en el respeto a la…
Content type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) and Privacy International (PI). The Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) is a non-governmental, non-pro t organisation based in Buenos Aires that promotes civil and social rights in Argentina and other Latin American countries. It was founded in 1995 with the purpose of helping to strengthen a legal and institutional culture that guarantees the fundamental rights of the people, based on respect…
Content type: Report
This investigation focuses on the techniques, tools and culture of Kenyan police and intelligence agencies’ communications surveillance practices. It focuses primarily on the use of surveillance for counterterrorism operations. It contrasts the fiction and reality of how communications content and data is intercepted and how communications data is fed into the cycle of arrests, torture and disappearances.
Communications surveillance is being carried out by Kenyan state actors, essentially…
Content type: Long Read
The use of IMSI catchers[1] to arrest individuals is rarely documented — as IMSI catchers are used secretively in most countries. The arrest of Colombian drug lord Henry López Londoño in Argentina is therefore a rare opportunity to understand both how IMSI catchers are used, and also the complexity of their extraterritorial use.
In October 2012, Londoño — also known as Mi Sangre (“My Blood”) — was arrested in Argentina. His arrest was the result of cooperation between the Dirección de…
Content type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI) and the Right2Know Campaign (R2K). This report has been prepared with the assistance and research done by the Media Policy and Democracy Project. PI is a human rights organisation that works to advance and promote the right to privacy and fight surveillance around the world. R2K is a broad- based, grassroots campaign formed to champion and defend information rights and promote the free flow of information in South Africa…
Content type: Press release
This week in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Committee will examine the Argentina’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), an international treaty which places obligations on signatories to guarantee human rights such as the right to privacy.
This review, by a body of independent experts charged with monitoring compliance with the ICCPR, comes at a critical time for Argentina laws and policies on privacy and surveillance.
Recent years have seen…
Content type: Press release
Esta semana en Ginebra, el Comité de Derechos Humanos de la ONU examinará el cumplimiento de la Argentina con el Pacto Internacional de Derechos Civiles y Políticos (PIDCP), un tratado internacional que establece obligaciones a los firmantes para garantizar los derechos humanos, como el derecho a la privacidad.
Este examen, por un grupo de expertos independientes encargados de vigilar el cumplimiento del PIDCP, llega en un momento crítico para las leyes y políticas de la Argentina sobre la…
Content type: Advocacy
La Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) y Privacy International toman nota de las respuestas del gobierno de Argentina a la lista de cuestiones antes de la presentación del informe, en particular en relación a la legislación, políticas y prácticas relacionadas con la vigilancia y la protección de los datos personales.
Privacy International es una organización de derechos humanos que trabaja para favorecer y promover el derecho a la privacidad y la lucha contra la vigilancia en todo el…
Content type: Advocacy
Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) and Privacy International note the replies by the government of Argentina to the list of issues prior to the submission of the report, in particular in relation to the laws, policies and practices related to surveillance and protection of personal data.
Privacy International is a human rights organisation that works to advance and promote the right to privacy and fight surveillance around the world. The Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) is a…
Content type: Advocacy
La Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) y Privacy International toman nota de las respuestas del gobierno de Argentina a la lista de cuestiones antes de la presentación del informe, en particular en relación a la legislación, políticas y prácticas relacionadas con la vigilancia y la protección de los datos personales.
Privacy International es una organización de derechos humanos que trabaja para favorecer y promover el derecho a la privacidad y la lucha contra la vigilancia en todo el…
Content type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI), Unwanted Witness Uganda, the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) and the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP).
Content type: Advocacy
This Universal Periodic Review (UPR) stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI), the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School (IHRC), the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum(the Forum), and the Digital Society of Zimbabwe (DSZ).
Content type: Advocacy
Privacy International, Right2Know, and the Association for Progressive Communications (hereinafter “the organisations”) note the written replies by the government of South Africa to the list of issues on South Africa’s laws, policies and practices related to interception of personal communications and protection of personal data.
The organisations have on-going concerns on the practices of surveillance by South African intelligence and law enforcement agencies. In this submission, the…
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 Rwanda before the Human Rights Committee for consideration in Rwanda's upcoming review.
Content type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI) and the Right2Know Campaing. 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 South Africa before the Human Rights Committee for consideration in South Africa's upcoming review.
Content type: Report
In societies that are in the process of transition towards democracy, democratic control of intelligence organisations is both an indispensable requirement and a pressing need. In many cases, the most serious human rights violations committed by dictatorial governments were intrinsically linked to draconian surveillance and control systems. Systematic spying on trade unions, students and dissident groups was a common feature of 20th-century dictatorships. The persistent violation of citizens’…
Content type: News & Analysis
A sizeable political controversy has engulfed President Goodluck Jonathan’s Government in Nigeria, where details surrounding its plans for the total surveillance of Africa’s most populous country continue to emerge.
Thanks to pervasive snooping technology readily found and developed in the US, UK, Israel and the Netherlands, the already spy-equipped security forces in Nigeria will have greater and more intimate access to the lives of some 56 million Internet users and 115 million active fixed…
Content type: News & Analysis
Just a few weeks ago, thousands of Argentinians had their privacy rights violated when the country’s electoral registration roll, which had been made available online, experienced a major leak of personal data following the presidential election.
Despite some early warnings on the weaknesses of the system, the government did nothing to fix the situation, allowing serious technical flaws in an online system to persist and refusing to respond to the crisis, further…
Content type: News & Analysis
The Zimbabwean government extended its reach into the private lives of its citizens this week by promulgating a new law establishing a central database of information about all mobile telephone users in the country. The Statutory Instrument 142 of 2013 on Postal and Telecommunications (Subscriber Registration) Regulations 2013, gazetted last Friday, raises new challenges to the already embattled rights to privacy and free expression in Zimbabwe, increasing the potential that the…
Content type: News & Analysis
In the wake of recent revelations about the NSA’s extensive surveillance powers over foreigners and American citizens, an ever-fuller picture of mass surveillance is being drawn in the US, the UK, and across the Western world. But what about clandestine surveillance practices in African states? How do they approximate or differ from those we’ve heard so much about in the last few weeks? A recent case from West Africa can help us begin to answer these questions.
In March,…