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Content type: Advocacy
Privacy International has joined several UK civil society organisations from across sectors in expressing our deep concerns regarding the financial surveillance powers proposed in the UK Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (DPDI Bill). Specifically outlined in Clause 128 and Schedule 11, these measures introduce mass algorithmic surveillance aimed at scrutinizing bank and third-party accounts to purportedly detect welfare fraud and errors. In other words, the Department for Work…
Content type: Long Read
Introduction
In response to the unprecedented social, economic, and public health threats posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Bank financed at least 232 "Covid-19 Response" projects. The projects were implemented across countries the World Bank classifies as middle and low-income.
This article will focus on eight (8) Covid-19 Response projects which sought to deliver social assistance to individuals and families on a "non-contributory" basis (this means that the intended beneficiaries…
Content type: Advocacy
This report is presented by TEDIC (Technology and Community Association) and Privacy International (PI). TEDIC is a non-governmental, non-profit organization, based in Asunción, that promotes and defends human rights on the Internet and extends its networking to Latin America. PI is a London based human rights organization that works globally at the intersection of modern technologies and rights.
TEDIC and PI wish to express some concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to…
Content type: News & Analysis
This article was written by Jamila Venturini from Derechos Digitales. The original version (in Spanish) is available here.
While at the international level there is a growing demand to ban the use of surveillance technologies until rigorous human rights standards are achieved, in Latin America we observe a new and silent tendency to acquire and use such systems to control access to social protection, i.e., to policies developed to reduce poverty, social vulnerability and exclusion…
Content type: Long Read
Back in 2019, we read through a 1000-page manual released by the UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) describing how they conduct investigations into alleged benefits fraud. While out in the open and accessible to anyone, the guide turned out to be a dizzying dive into a world where civil servants are asked to stand outside someone’s door to decide if they are indeed single or disabled and have to be reminded that living together as a married couple is not an offense. The guide – which…
Content type: Long Read
In May 2019, the UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) – the department in charge of welfare – published their two-part staff guide on conducting fraud investigations. Privacy International went through the 995 pages to understand how those investigations happen and how the DWP is surveilling benefits claimants suspected of fraud.
Anyone who has flipped through a tabloid will have seen articles exposing the so-called “benefits-cheats,” people who allegedly trick the benefits systems for…
Content type: News & Analysis
A unanimous ruling by the Court of Appeal confirmed earlier findings that the rigid monthly income assessment regime set up by the Department of Work and Pensions - the entity responsible for issuing benefits - to calculate the amount of benefits to be paid out resulted in significant and unwarranted cash losses to benefits claimants. The Court of Appeal found that the failure by the Department of Work and Pensions to rectify the issue was unlawful.
The case is a clear example…
Content type: Report
It is common for families with no recourse to public funds who attempt to access support from local authorities to have their social media monitored as part of a 'Child in Need' assessment. This practice appears to be part of a proactive strategy on the part of local authorities to discredit vulnerable families in order to refuse support. In our experience, information on social media accounts is often wildly misinterpreted by local authorities who make serious and unfounded allegations…
Content type: Advocacy
Privacy International sent a letter to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office (IPCO) addressing social media monitoring carried out by Local Authorities.
The submission builds on a campaign and research carried out by PI highlighting the growth of social media monitoring across Local Authorities, as well as the general lack of internal oversight for some of these activities. After providing an introduction to the research and the findings, the letter highlights each of PI’s concerns…
Content type: Case Study
From 2019 to 2020, citizens of economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Netherlands were subject to unlawful invasion of their privacy by the Dutch government’s automated welfare fraud detection system. The system is known as System Risk Indicator (SyRI), and the Dutch government used it to generate risk scores for individual citizens by combining personal data including “identity, labor, personal estates and property, education, pension, business, income and assets, pension and debts.…
Content type: News & Analysis
Today, the District Court of the Hague ruled that the right to privacy prevailed over the hunt against alleged benefits fraudsters. The ruling could have huge implications for the future of digital welfare around the world.
In NJCM cs/ De Staat der Nederlanden (NJCM vs the Netherlands), also known as the SyRI case, the court considered the legality of the System Risk Indication (SyRI), a system designed by the Dutch government to process large amounts of data collected by various Dutch public…
Content type: Advocacy
TEDIC, InternetLab, Derechos Digitales, la Fundación Karisma, Dejusticia, la Asociación por los Derechos Civiles y Privacy International acogen el llamado de la Relatoría Especial sobre Derechos Económicos, Sociales, Culturales y Ambientales (DESCA) de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) de enviar información para la elaboración del Informe Anual sobre DESCA del año 2019, que se presentará ante la Organización de los Estados Americanos (OEA) en 2020.
El objeto de este…
Content type: Advocacy
TEDIC, InternetLab, Derechos Digitales, Fundación Karisma, Dejusticia, Asociación por los Derechos Civiles and Privacy International welcome the call made by the Special Rapporteurship on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (ESCER) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to inform the preparation of the Annual Report of the ESCER for the year 2019, which will be presented to the Organization of American States (OAS) during 2020.
This submission aims to outline…
Content type: News & Analysis
CC: BY (Kirill Sharkovski)-SA
Este artículo fue escrito por Jamila Venturini, Coordinadora regional de Derechos Digitales. El artículo fue publicado por primera vez aquí. This article is available in English.
La implementación de programas que condicionan el acceso a servicios básicos por medio de vigilancia estatal y privada agudizan la inequidad imperante en el continente.
Mientras la brecha entre ricos y pobres se incrementa en el mundo, América Latina sigue siendo la región donde la…
Content type: News & Analysis
Picture: CC: BY (Kirill Sharkovski)-SA
This article was written by Jamila Venturini from Derechos Digitales. The original version (in Spanish) is available here.
How implementing social protection programmes that condition access to basic services to state and private surveillance exacerbate the prevailing inequality on the continent.
While the gap between rich and poor is increasing in the world, Latin America remains the most unequal region of the world. According to the Economic…
Content type: Examples
In Israel, the National Insurance Institute – in charge of granting benefits – eventually dropped a tender that had caused outrage in the country after being uncovered by Haaretz and Channel 13. The tender revealed the NII was trying to collect online data about benefits claimants – including from social media – to detect cases of frauds. The tender used wheelchair users as an example, suggesting that finding pictures of alleged wheelchair users using bikes on social media could contribute to…
Content type: Examples
The rise of social media has also been a game changer in the tracking of benefits claimants. In the UK in 2019, a woman was jailed after she was jailed for five months after pictures of her partying in Ibiza emerged on social media. She had previously sued the NHS for £2.5 million, after surviving a botched operation. She had argued the operation had left her disabled and the “shadow of a former self” but judges argued that the pictures suggested otherwise.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/…
Content type: Examples
The rise of social media has also been a game changer in the tracking of benefits claimants. Back in 2009, the case of Nathalie Blanchard a woman in Quebec who had lost her disability insurance benefits for depression because she looked “too happy” on her Facebook pictures had made the news.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/AheadoftheCurve/woman-loses-insurance-benefits-facebook-pics/story?id=9154741
Author: Ki Mae Heussner
Publication: ABC News
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: News & Analysis
Privacy International today is proud to announce our new project, Aiding Privacy, which aims to promote the right to privacy and data protection in the development and humanitarian fields. Below is an outline of the issues addressed in our new report released today, Aiding Surveillance.
New technologies hold great potential for the developing world. The problem, however, is that there has been a systematic failure to critically contemplate the potential ill effects of deploying technologies in…