News and Analysis

N&A, Long Reads, Press Release

News & Analysis

Unwanted Witness publish a briefing for election observers on the importance of privacy and data protection in the election cycle.

Uganda's Presidential election in January 2021 resulted in the incumbent President Museveni winning his sixth term in office, having held power for 35 years. The election took place amidst a global pandemic and the run up to election day was fraught. Violence left dozens dead and hundreds more

News & Analysis

The new Policing Bill fails to provide sufficient safeguards around extraction of victims' data.

PI's analysis of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill demonstrates inability of the Bill to sufficiently safeguard individuals' privacy when extracting information from electronic devices.

News & Analysis

Resisting profiling: our response to the National Fraud Initiative consultation

PI submitted a response to the Cabinet Office’s consultation on the expansion of the National Fraud Initiative powers. The consultation is open until 5 May 2021.

News & Analysis

A win for Unwanted Witness: Uganda’s data protection authority finds ride sharing app unlawfully disclosed personal data to third parties

Unwanted Witness’ research into motorcycle ride sharing app Safeboda, highlighting their failures to comply with data protection law, leads data protection regulator to take enforcement action.

News & Analysis

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

Challenging Police records management: our response to the public consultation on the way Police in England and Wales record and store information

PI together with Open Rights Group (ORG) submitted a joint response to the the College of Policing public consultation on how the Police in England and Wales will be managing, recording and archiving information. Our response was also supported by Defend Digital Me, Coram Children's Legal Centre and Refugee and Asylum Participation Action Research (RAPAR)

News & Analysis

The Hostile Environment is incompatible with public health: PI joins the Vaccine For All campaign

PI joins more than 140 UK migrants’ rights charities, faith groups, local authorities, health institutions and trade unions in a call to the Department of Health calling for an end to Hostile Environment immigration policies in the NHS so that everyone can access the vaccine without fear.

Case Study

Mobile App Monetisation - Covert trackers in your pocket

Some apps on your phone have code from third parties that covertly tracks and collects data about you. With little to no transparency, your data is put up for sale. It can be used to target you with personalised ads, or even for policing if law enforcement happens to be the buyer.

Hand passing a small wrapped item to another hand

Case Study

Tracking as a service: ShareThis to be profiled!

If you've never made a website, you might have not heard of AddThis or ShareThis, but chances are you've encountered them. These services offer the "share" buttons that easily integrates into websites. However, this feature is also used by these companies to track visitors across the web.

Press release

PI launches reports on political ads transparency and micro-targeting

PI’s research reflects on the unequal transparency standards applied by social media platforms to political advertising globally, and the regulation of micro-targeting in six states.

News & Analysis

World map indicating countries where mandatory transparency tools apply

Online political ads - a study of inequality in transparency standards

In its new report, PI looks into the implementation of transparency tools by Facebook, Google and Twitter in relation to political advertising. This work was produced in collaboration with partner organisations InternetLab and ELSAM.

News & Analysis

On the hypocrisy of using privacy to justify unfair competition

2021 will see the unfolding of major challenges to the power of big platforms, like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. Most will revolve around our data and will be fought in the field of competition and anti-trust. Alarmingly companies are increasingly using privacy as a cloak to justify their privacy invasive practices.

Video

Podcast: The end of privacy? The spread of facial recognition

A year ago on Monday the New York Times published an article, by a fantastic tech journalist called Kashmir Hill, about a facial recognition company called Clearview AI called 'The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It' .

This episode we talk to a range of experts and journalist about who are Clearview? What are they doing? Why is their business model so problematic? And is the problem Clearview specific? Or is systemic?

Video

A green pill bottle surrounded by multicolour pills. Label reads Technology Pill, next to title 2021: What can we expect? It sits on a waveform

Podcast: 2021 - what can we expect?

We give you the run down on the things we expect and are excited for and sometimes apprehensive of in 2021 and give you the lowdown on what's written in your stars for the coming year.

News & Analysis

Press Release: European Commission green lights Google and Fitbit merger in a game-changing and disappointing decision for the rights of millions of Europeans

The European Commission has today concluded its review of Google's proposed acquisition of Fitbit. Privacy International is disappointed that the Commission has decided to let the merger go through, allowing Google's extraordinary power to expand into wearables and sensitive health data.

Long Read

“Anytime and anywhere”: Vaccination passports, immunity certificates, and the permanent pandemic

The deployment of vaccines, and in particular any "vaccination passport or “immunity passport” or certificate linked to the vaccination, must respect human rights.

Press release

Privacy International takes its five-year battle against UK government’s hacking powers to the High Court

Following PI’s landmark Supreme Court win in 2019, we will be back in court on 8 and 9 December 2020 to resume our long-running fight against the UK government’s wide-ranging hacking and property interference powers.