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Content Type: Examples
The CEO of MoviePass, an app that charges users $10 a month in return for allowing them to watch a movie every day in any of the 90% of US theatres included in its programme, said in March 2018 that the company was exploring the idea of monetising the location data it collects. MoviePass was always open about its plans to profit from the data it collects, but it seems likely that its 1.5 million users assumed that meant ticket sales, movie choice, promotions, and so on - not detailed tracking…
Content Type: Examples
The Danish company Blip Systems deploys sensors in cities, airports, and railway stations to help understand and analyse traffic flows and improve planning. In the UK's city of Portsmouth, a network of BlipTrack sensors was installed in 2013 by VAR Smart CCTV, and the data it has collected is used to identify problem areas and detect changing traffic patterns. The city hope that adding more sensors to identify individual journeys will help reduce commuting times, fuel consumption, and vehicular…
Content Type: Examples
In February 2018 the Canadian government announced a three-month pilot partnership with the artificial intelligence company Advanced Symbolics to monitor social media posts with a view to predicting rises in regional suicide risk. Advanced Symbolics will look for trends by analysing posts from 160,000 social media accounts; the results are intended to aid the Canadian government in allocating mental health resources. The company claims to be able to predict suicidal ideation, behaviours, and…
Content Type: Examples
A pregnancy-tracking app collected basic information such as name, address, age, and date of last period from its users. A woman who miscarried found that although she had entered the miscarriage into the app to terminate its tracking, the information was not passed along to the marketers to which the app's developer had sold it. A few weeks before her original due date, a package was delivered to her home including a note of congratulations and a box of baby formula. Although the baby had died…
Content Type: Examples
In the wake of Tesla’s first recorded autopilot crash, automakers are reassessing the risk involved with rushing semi-autonomous driving technology into the hands of distractible drivers. But another aspect of autopilot—its ability to hoover up huge amounts of mapping and “fleet learning” data—is also accelerating the auto industry’s rush to add new sensors to showroom-bound vehicles. This may surprise some users: Tesla’s Terms of Use (TOU) does not explicitly state that the company will…
Content Type: Examples
Caucuses, which are used in some US states as a method of voting in presidential primaries, rely on voters indicating their support for a particulate candidate by travelling to the caucus location. In a 2016 Marketplace radio interview, Tom Phillips, the CEO of Dstillery, a big data intelligence company, said that his company had collected mobile device IDs at the location for each of the political party causes during the Iowa primaries. Dstillery paired caucus-goers with their online…
Content Type: Examples
In 2015, the Royal Parks conducted a covert study of visitors to London's Hyde Park using anonymised mobile phone signals provided by the network operator EE to analyse footfall. During the study, which was conducted via government-funded Future Cities Catapult, the Royal Parks also had access to aggregated age and gender data, creating a detailed picture of how different people used the park over the period of about a year. The study also showed the percentage of EE subscribers who visited…
Content Type: Examples
In 2015, ABI Research discovered that the power light on the front of Alphabet's Nest Cam was deceptive: even when users had used the associated app to power down the camera and the power light went off, the device continued to monitor its surroundings, noting sound, movement, and other activities. The proof lay in the fact that the device's power drain diminished by an amount consistent with only turning off the LED light. Alphabet explained the reason was that the camera had to be ready to be…
Content Type: Examples
Because banks often decline to give loans to those whose "thin" credit histories make it hard to assess the associated risk, in 2015 some financial technology startups began looking at the possibility of instead performing such assessments by using metadata collected by mobile phones or logged from internet activity. The algorithm under development by Brown University economist Daniel Björkegren for the credit-scoring company Enterpreneurial Finance Lab was built by examining the phone records…
Content Type: Examples
In 2016, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California published a report revealing that the social media monitoring service Geofeedia had suggested it could help police track protesters. The report's publication led Twitter and Facebook to restrict Geofeedia's access to their bulk data. ACLUNC argued that even though the data is public, using it for police surveillance is an invasion of privacy. Police are not legally required to get a warrant before searching public data; however…
Content Type: Examples
At the Sixth Annual Conference on Social Media Within the Defence and Military Sector, held in London in 2016, senior military and intelligence officials made it clear that governments increasingly view social media as a tool for the Armed Forces and a "new front in warfare". Social media are also viewed as a source of intelligence on civilian populations and enemies and as a vector for propaganda. The conference was sponsored by Thales, which was working with the National Research Council of…
Content Type: Examples
In 2016, researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory developed a new device that uses wireless signals that measure heartbeats by bouncing off a person's body. The researchers claim that this system is 87% accurate in recognising joy, pleasure, sadness, or anger based on the heart rate after first measuring how the individual's body reacts in various emotional states. Unlike a medical electrocardiogram, it does not require a sensor to be attached to the person's…
Content Type: Advocacy
On 6 March 2018, Privacy International participated in an interactive dialogue with the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy at the 37th Ordinary Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. We highlighted the growing trend of governments embracing hacking to facilitate their surveillance activities, and recommended the development of a human rights analysis of government hacking for surveillance purposes, with the view to forming specific…
Content Type: Press release
26 March 2015
The UN's top human rights body, the Human Rights Council, today has passed a landmark resolution endorsing the appointment of an independent expert on the right to privacy. For the first time in the UN's history, an individual will be appointed to monitor, investigate and report on privacy issues and alleged violations in States across the world.
The resolution, which appoints a Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy for an initial period of three years, was spearheaded…
Content Type: Advocacy
In this submission, Privacy International provides the Committee with their observations to the written replies of the Pakistani government and with additional, up to date information to that contained in the brieing submitted to the Committee in advance of the adoption of the list of issues in 2016.
Content Type: Examples
For some months in 2017, in one of a series of high-risk missteps, Uber violated Apple's privacy guidelines by tagging and identifying iPhones even after their users had deleted Uber's app. When Apple discovered the deception, CEO Tim Cook told Uber CEO Travis Kalanick to cease the practice or face having the Uber app barred from the App Store.
External Link to Story
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/23/technology/travis-kalabnick-pushes-uber-and-himself-to-the-precipice.html
Content Type: News & Analysis
What do Honduras, Pakistan, and Switzerland have in common? They are all bound to respect and protect the right to privacy under Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. And in July 2017, they all also happened to be under the scrutiny of the UN Human Rights Committee, which found the countries’ human rights record wanting in many respects, including the scope of their surveillance legislation.
Intelligence sharing
Reviewing Pakistan, the Committee…
Content Type: Advocacy
Privacy International and the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties' Joint Submission in Consideration of the Sixth Periodic Report of Italy Human Rights Committee 119th Session (6-29 March 2017).
The submission brings to the attention of the Committee the ongoing concern with Italian security agencies’ hacking capabilities and intelligence sharing arrangement, with Italian data retention procedures, and its export control regime as it relates to its robust…
Content Type: Report
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI). PI is a human rights organisation that works to advance and promote the right to privacy and ght surveillance around the world. Privacy International wishes to bring concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to privacy for consideration in Pakistan’s upcoming review at the 28th session of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review.
Content Type: Long Read
This briefing highlights opportunities for NGOs to raise issues related to the right to privacy before some selected UN human rights bodies that have the mandate and the capacity to monitor and provide recommendations and redress.
The briefing provides some examples based on Privacy International’s experience and points at additional resources and guides. While this guide focuses on the work of NGOs, information to UN human rights mechanisms can be sent by other civil society actors…
Content Type: Advocacy
This stakeholder report is a submission by Privacy International (PI). PI is a human rights organisation that works to advance and promote the right to privacy and fight surveillance around the world. PI wishes to bring concerns about the protection and promotion of the right to privacy in Uzbekistan before the Human Rights Committee for consideration in Uzbekistan's upcoming review.
Content Type: Advocacy
La Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) y Privacy International toman nota de las respuestas del gobierno de Argentina a la lista de cuestiones antes de la presentación del informe, en particular en relación a la legislación, políticas y prácticas relacionadas con la vigilancia y la protección de los datos personales.
Privacy International es una organización de derechos humanos que trabaja para favorecer y promover el derecho a la privacidad y la lucha contra la vigilancia en todo el…
Content Type: Advocacy
Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) and Privacy International note the replies by the government of Argentina to the list of issues prior to the submission of the report, in particular in relation to the laws, policies and practices related to surveillance and protection of personal data.
Privacy International is a human rights organisation that works to advance and promote the right to privacy and fight surveillance around the world. The Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) is a…
Content Type: Advocacy
La Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) y Privacy International toman nota de las respuestas del gobierno de Argentina a la lista de cuestiones antes de la presentación del informe, en particular en relación a la legislación, políticas y prácticas relacionadas con la vigilancia y la protección de los datos personales.
Privacy International es una organización de derechos humanos que trabaja para favorecer y promover el derecho a la privacidad y la lucha contra la vigilancia en todo el…
Content Type: Advocacy
Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides for the right of every person to be protected against arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence as well as against unlawful attacks on his honour or reputation. Any interference with the right to privacy can only be justified if it is in accordance with the law, has a legitimate objective and is conducted in a way that is necessary and proportionate. Surveillance…
Content Type: Advocacy
Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides for the right of every person to be protected against arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence as well as against unlawful attacks on his honour or reputation. Any interference with the right to privacy can only be justified if it is in accordance with the law, has a legitimate objective and is conducted in a way that is necessary and proportionate. Surveillance…
Content Type: Advocacy
Privacy International, Civil Rights Defenders and DFRI note Sweden’s written replies to the list of issues in relation to Swedish laws, policies and practices on interception of personal communications.
The following comments are based on the analysis of the Swedish legislation, as well as policies and practices on surveillance by Privacy International, Civil Rights Defenders and DFRI.