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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: News & Analysis
As the international cyber security debate searches for new direction, little attention is paid to what is going on in Africa. Stepping over the remains of the UN Group of Governmental Experts, and passing by the boardrooms of Microsoft struggling to deliver their Digital Geneva Convention, African nations are following their own individual paths.
Unfortunately, these paths increasingly prioritise intrusive state surveillance and criminalisation of legitimate expression online as cyber…
Content type: News & Analysis
Image was found here.
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: News & Analysis
Written by the National Coalition for Human Rights Defenders - Kenya and Privacy International
05:00: Mercy’s alarm goes off. She gets out of the warmth of the bed into the piercing morning chill. She switches on the bedside lamp and reaches for her Bible. She then checks in onto her devotional group on Facebook, as she does every morning. Her Facebook app keeps track of her location, and the time she wakes up.
05:24: She steps into the shower and prepares for her day in the office as she…
Content type: News & Analysis
Overview
CIPIT is currently investigating how the privacy of Kenyan citizens was affected by the use of biometric data during the just concluded 2017 general and repeat elections. The IEBC is mandated by law to register voters, verify their registration details and conduct elections. Accordingly, the IEBC is the custodian of the public voter register. There have been reports that individuals received SMS texts from candidates vying for various political seats during the campaign period of the…
Content type: Long Read
The battle for Kenyan voters’ allegiance in the 2017 Presidential election was fought on social media and the blogosphere. Paid advertisements for two mysterious, anonymous sites in particular started to dominate Google searches for dozens of election-related terms in the months leading up to the vote. All linked back to either “The Real Raila”, a virulent attack campaign against presidential hopeful Raila Odinga, or Uhuru for Us, a site showcasing President Uhuru Kenyatta’s accomplishments. As…
Content type: Press release
A new investigation published today by Privacy International reveals the role of an American data-based digital advertising company in the highly divisive online re-election campaign of Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta.
In the run-up to Kenya's presidential election in August 2017, paid advertisements for two mysterious sites dominated Google searches for election-related terms and flooded Kenyans' social media feeds. All linked back to either 'The Real Raila', a virulent attack campaign…
Content type: News & Analysis
Recently, a text from a local telecommunications company inquired whether its subscribers knew that they could now enroll their voice so they could access various services securely and conveniently. This added a further dynamic to the on-going debate in several quarters on the accelerated adoption of biometrics in Kenya. Does Kenya have the necessary framework in place to safeguard the privacy and security of its citizens? The reality is, innovators will not wait for an optimal legal…
Content type: Press release
The European Court of Human Rights will hear a landmark case on surveillance tomorrow (7 November) as part of a challenge to the lawfulness of the UK’s surveillance laws and its intelligence agencies’ mass surveillance practices.
See the attached briefing for case background and historical information.
The case, described by campaigners as a “watershed moment for people’s privacy and freedom of expression across the world”, is being brought by Amnesty International, Liberty, Privacy…
Content type: News & Analysis
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 recommendations to reform the…
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
The argument that human rights are a Western concept and that privacy is not a concern for the developing world was rejected last week in a two-day civil society seminar held in Dakar, Senegal.
More than 30 members of West African civil society participated in the seminar on privacy and data protection, organised by Jonction with the support of the Senegalese Commission for Data Protection. Participants denounced the shortcomings of governments and the private sector in upholding, protecting…
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 repressive…
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, Benin saw its own…