News and Analysis

In an encouraging first response to our complaint against surveillance company Gamma International (Gamma), the UK National Contact Point (NCP) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) announced that it will further investigate our claim against Gamma, as the evidence

Trade has often been a positive driver in encouraging countries to adopt data protection laws, to ensure compliance and ability to conduct business with the European Union and other privacy-respecting partners. However, when free trade agreements are negotiated in secret and influenced by powerful

The government of Pakistan has repeatedly shown it is relentless when it comes to deploying measures to censor and spy on its own citizens. Today, a report released by Citizen Lab reveals another repressive tool being used to control and prevent information being accessed on the internet -- this

Below is an excerpt of an article that recently appeared in Melbourne, Australia's The Age, written by Carly Nyst, Head of International Advocacy at Privacy International: "Mass surveillance of a country's citizens by its government can no longer be said to be the preserve of authoritarian and

This post originally appeared on the blog for Association for Progessive Communications, written by Shawna Finnegan and Carly Nyst, for APCNews and Privacy International: At the 23rd session of the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue

UPDATE: The Guardian has just reported that "The UK's electronic eavesdropping and security agency, GCHQ, has been secretly gathering intelligence from the world's biggest internet companies through a covertly run operation set up by America's top spy agency." This recent news reveals a long-held

The revelations of the US government's massive and indiscriminate surveillance program are absolutely frightening, putting before the public's eyes the breadth of a secret, dragnet spying regime which casts every US citizen as a suspect. The unearthing of this top secret court order shows that even

In a landmark report, the United Nations today has broken its long-held silence about the threat that State surveillance poses to the enjoyment of the right to privacy. The report is clear: State surveillance of communications is ubiquitous, and such surveillance severely undermines citizens’

Compulsory data on every state school pupil in the country can now be used for research “promoting the education or well-being of children in England”, according to UK Department for Education. The Department’s response to the highly worrying National Pupil Database (NPD), released in late May, is

A longer version of this article was previously published in Wired on 10 May 2013. We all know surveillance is big in Putin’s Russia. What you may not know is that Russia’s surveillance tech is being used all over the world, even in the U.S. The Kremlin is up to its domes in spy technology. One

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

We very much welcome today's announcement by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt that people will be allowed to opt out of having their medical records shared in the NHS England centralised information bank. The move is an important one for data privacy and patient choice, and has been a key objective of

The current iteration of the UK's "Communications Data Bill" is now dead. Privacy International has been working closely with others behind the scenes to work on understanding what little case there was, and fundamentally demolishing it. The UK Government is now examining a "middle way" for the

After a successful investigation by the US government into the illegal reselling of over a million dollars worth of surveillance equipment to the Syrian regime, Dubai distribution company Computerlinks FZCO has agreed to pay the maximum civil penalty of $2.8 million. Computerlinks, in three separate