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Track, Capture, Kill: Inside Communications Surveillance and Counterterrorism In Kenya
Content type: Report

Track, Capture, Kill: Inside Communications Surveillance and Counterterrorism In Kenya

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…
Reports Of The Death Of Communications Privacy Are Greatly Exaggerated: Reflections On The Recent UN Human Rights Committee Findings On South Africa
Content type: News & Analysis

Reports Of The Death Of Communications Privacy Are Greatly Exaggerated: Reflections On The Recent UN Human Rights Committee Findings On South Africa

This guest piece was written by Jane Duncan of the Right2Know Campaign. It does not necessarily reflect the views or position of Privacy International. On 23rd March the United Nations Human Rights Committee released its assessment on South Africa’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The report includes a blistering attack on the Government for failing to respect the privacy of the communications of users and makes…
Content type: Press release

European Court invalidates Data Retention Directive, says mass surveillance of metadata interferes with right to privacy

The ruling today from the European Court of Justice, invalidating the European Union’s 2006 Data Retention Directive policy, was strong and unequivocal: the right to privacy provides a fundamental barrier between the individual and powerful institutions, and laws allowing for indiscriminate, blanket retention on this scale are completely unacceptable. As the Court states, it is not, and never was, proportionate to spy on the entire population of Europe. The types of data retained under this…
Content type: Press release

Google Transparency Report for second half of 2012 shows European government attempts to access private data at an all-time high

Google's latest Transparency Report, released at 3pm GMT this afternoon, shows that requests by European governments for the browsing history, email communications, documents and IP addresses of Google's users have skyrocketed since the Transparency Report was launched three years ago. Countries in the European Union made 7,254 requests about 9,240 users or accounts between July and December 2012, averaging over 1,200 requests a month. This represents over a third of all requests made by…