Search
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: News & Analysis
This guest post was written by Nighat Dad and Adnan Chaudhry of Digital Rights Foundation.
It is the role of the state to protect its citizens from threats to their life and liberty. But in protecting its citizens, the state’s own aims cannot be counterproductive and erode the security found in rights like privacy and freedom of expression that are vital to a democratic system.
However, it has too often been the case that governments will pursue and enact legislation that provides more…
Content type: News & Analysis
While two of the Vice journalists who were recently arrested in Turkey and charged with terror offenses have now been released, this remain a deeply concerning incident.* It is the latest episode in what is a pincer movement against our right to protect our data.
Two British journalists and their Turkey-based Iraqi translator working for VICE News were arrested last Thursday and charged with "engaging in terrorist activity". According to Turkish authorities, one member of the group had an…
Content type: News & Analysis
FREAK, the latest security vulnerability to be exposed that has implications for millions of supposedly secure websites, is just the most recent example of something privacy and security advocates have been saying for some time: when governments meddle with our security technologies, it hurts us all.
When the State advocates for backdoors into our communications, they cannot secure them properly and malicious actors can get in. When our elected officials pontificate about spying on us to…
Content type: News & Analysis
In the wake of tragic attacks in France, politicians from across the world are calling for dramatically expanded surveillance powers, to spy on our phonecalls, ban encrypted communications such as WhatsApp and iMessage, and store details about our international travels for years on end.
If it feels like you've heard this story before, it's because you have. With each violent attempt by extremists to terrorise society, our political leaders dust off old, failed proposals such as the UK…
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
Privacy International welcomes the absence of a Communications Data Bill in the Queen's Speech. The Communications Data bill was originally set to significantly expand the powers of communications surveillance in the UK and set another bad standard globally. Because of the work by Parliamentarians, a concerted effort by civil society groups and some within industry, this expansion was avoided, for now. However the Queen's Speech did include a mention of new proposals:
In relation…
Content type: News & Analysis
Anonymous proxy service HideMyAss.com - "a leading online privacy website" according to its own homepage - today admitted handing over user logs to law enforcement agencies.
We commend companies running privacy-protecting services. We need more like them. But we also need them to keep their word. Their website claims "Our free web proxy is a secure service that allows you to surf anonymously online in complete privacy" and their pro paid-for version promises that users can "…
Content type: News & Analysis
The Home Office has been planning a grab for new communications surveillance powers since 2006; today, the Draft Communications Data Bill established in legislative language their ambitions.
Yes, as they will point out, it isn't their the full scope of their ambitions. In 2008, under Labour, they proposed the idea of a vast centralised database of the nation's communications data. In 2009 they abandoned the idea of a central database. Since then, a new government has been elected,…
Content type: News & Analysis
Other human rights organisations often ask us what they should to when it comes to their infosec needs. Should they run their own mail server, or trust Gmail? Should they merge their calendars by email (!), a local server, or use some cloud solution?
We honestly don't know what to tell them. In fact, we are unsure of what we ourselves should be doing. We know that there are risks of keeping things local (e.g. lack of redundancy), and there are risks of data being stored…
Content type: News & Analysis
Privacy International has briefed the UK House of Commons Treasury subcommittee on the risks to UK census data if a company with a US data centre is called on to run the census. Under weak US laws on safeguarding personal information, the UK census data could be abused without any knowledge of the UK government.
We filed a letter with the subcommittee to respond to the government minister's claims to the Commons that the government had no concerns about the US government gaining access to the…