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Content type: Long Read
Photo: Francesco Bellina
Driven by the need to never again allow organised mass murder of the type inflicted during the Second World War, the European Union has brought its citizens unprecedented levels of peace underpinned by fundamental rights and freedoms.
It plays an instrumental role in protecting people’s privacy around the world; its data protection regulation sets the bar globally, while its courts have been at the forefront of challenges to unlawful government surveillance…
Content type: News & Analysis
The Irish Data Protection Commissioner has made a ruling on the controversial Public Services Card (PSC) that has described much of what is is done with the card as unlawful. The PSC has proven controversial: introduced in 2012 for welfare claimants, it's use expanded to more and more uses, including its use to get a driving licence or passport. Now, following campaigns from civil liberties organisations, this expansion of use has now been found to be unlawful by Ireland's Data Protection…
Content type: Examples
In February 2019 Gemalto announced it would supply the Uganda Police Force with its Cogent Automated Biometric Identification System and LiveScan technology in order to improve crime-solving. LiveScan enables police to capture biometric data alongside mugshots and biographical data. CABIS speeds up the biometric matching process by mapping distinctive characteristics in fingerprints, palm prints, and facial images. The Ugandan police will also pilot Gemalto's Mobile Biometric Identification…
Content type: Examples
In November 2018, Italy's Data Protection Authority advised against a proposal from the country's Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, to replace "parent 1 and parent 2" on children's national ID cards with "mother and father". Salvini, who campaigned for election earlier in 2018 on a socially conservative platform, also called for gender-specific terms throughout the application and for applications submitted on behalf of under-14s to include permission from both parents. The DPA argued that the…
Content type: Examples
As early as 2008, the Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE began helping Venezuela develop a system similar to the identity system used in China to track social, political, and economic behaviour. By 2018, Venezuela was rolling out its "carnet de la patria", a smart-card "fatherland" ID card that was being increasingly linked to the government-subsidised health, food, and other social programmes most Venezuelans relied on for survival. In 2017, Venezuela hired ZTE to build a comprehensive…
Content type: Examples
After an 18-month investigation involving interviews with 160 life insurance companies, in January 2019 New York Financial Services, the state's top financial regulator, announced it would allow life insurers to use data from social media and other non-traditional sources to set premium rates for its customers. Insurers will be required to demonstrate that their use of the information doesn't unfairly discriminate against specific customers. New York is the first state to issue specific…
Content type: Examples
In February 2019, the World Food Programme, a United Nations aid agency, announced a five-year, $45 million partnership with the data analytics company Palantir. WFP, the world's largest humanitarian organisation focusing on hunger and food security, hoped that Palantir, better known for partnering with police and surveillance agencies, could help analyse large amounts of data to create new insights from the data WFP collects from the 90 million people in 80 countries to whom it distributes 3…
Content type: Examples
In February 2019, an anonymous tip-off to Computer Sweden revealed that a database containing recordings of 170,000 hours of calls made to the Vårdguiden 1177 non-emergency healthcare advice line was left without encryption or password protection on an open web server provided by Voice Integrate Nordic AB. After the breach was discovered, MedHelp, which runs the 1177 service, shut the server down and found that 55 call files had been illegally downloaded from seven different IP addresses. Nine…
Content type: Examples
In Ireland benefits claimants are expected to register for a Public Services Card (PSC) in order to access benefits. PSC users are expected to have their photographs taken in department offices, which is then digitally captured along with their signature. While this card was originally created to prevent benefits fraud – by insuring someone could not register twice to claim benefits – it is increasingly being used as a de facto form of ID and citizens have been apply for PSC even when they do…
Content type: Examples
Cases of people being denied healthcare as they fail to provide an Aadhaar number have already started emerging. A 28-year old domestic worker, for instance, had to be hospitalised for a blood transfusion after she had an abortion with an unqualified local physician. She had been denied an abortion, to which she was legally entitled, from a reputable government hospital, as she did not have an Aadhaar card. Following this case, 52 public health organisations and individuals issued a statement…
Content type: Examples
In India, one of the reasons the Aadhaar ID system has been increasingly widely used is that it is mandatory for much India’s benefits system. Government subsidies are now processed through under the Direct Benefit Transfer scheme, which requires citizens to have a bank account and to insure that their Aadhaar number is linked to their bank account so they can receive subsidies.
https://www.paisabazaar.com/aadhar-card/want-to-avail-government-subsidies-provide-aadhaar-and-get-it-easily/…
Content type: Examples
Research from the Brennan Center shows minorities are primarily affected by new laws that restrict citizens access to voting through ID requirement, increased distance to polling station, inconvenient opening hours and hidden costs.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/18/voter-id-poor-black-americans
Writer: Ed Pilkington
Publication: The Guardian
Content type: News & Analysis
Creative Commons Photo Credit: Source
In this first episode of the Gender and Privacy Series, we go to Manila in the Philippines to meet two transgender right activists - Naomi Fontanos and AR Arcon. We discuss what the right to privacy means to them and their fight against the government's plan to deploy an ID card system.
Listen to the podcast here.
Content type: Long Read
The Privacy International Network is celebrating Data Privacy Week, where we’ll be talking about how trends in surveillance and data exploitation are increasingly affecting our right to privacy. Join the conversation on Twitter using #dataprivacyweek.
It is often communities who are already the most marginalised who are at risk because of the privacy invasions of data-intensive systems. Across the globe, we see the dangers of identity systems; the harms of online violence against women and the…