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Content Type: Long Read
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, major tech platforms have been rapidly evolving their business models. Despite their dominance in various markets, tech giants like Google and Meta are venturing into new territories to expand their user base. One of the most striking ventures has been their foray into the "connectivity market" through substantial, and occasionally unsuccessful, investments in network infrastructure.
Many tech companies are investing resources into network infrastructure, either…
Content Type: Report
First published in 2017, PI’s Guide to International Law and Surveillance is an attempt to collate relevant excerpts from these judgments and reports into a single principled guide that will be regularly updated. This is the fourth edition of the Guide. It has been updated it to reflect the most relevant legal developments until March 2024.The Guide aspires to be a handy reference tool for anyone engaging in campaigning, advocacy, and scholarly research, on these issues. The fourth…
Content Type: Long Read
Table of contentsIntroductionWeighing the (potential) benefits with the risksPrivacy rights and the right to healthThe right to healthPrivacy, data-protection and health dataThe right to health in the digital contextWhy the drive for digitalImproved access to healthcarePatient empowerment and remote monitoringBut these same digital solutions carry magnified risks…More (and more connected) dataData leaks and breachesData sharing without informed consentProfiling and manipulationTools are not…
Content Type: News & Analysis
We have been fighting for transparency and stronger regulation of the use of IMSI catchers by law enforcement in the UK since 2016. The UK police forces have been very secretive about the use of IMSI catchers – maintaining a strict “neither confirm nor deny” (NCND) policy. In our efforts to seek greater clarity we wrote to the UK body which monitors the use of covert investigatory powers, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office (IPCO), asking the Commissioner to revisit this…
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: News & Analysis
In a ruling handed down on 14 October 2021 by the High Court of Kenya in relation to an application filed by Katiba Institute calling for a halt to the rollout of the Huduma card in the absence of a data impact assessment, the Kenyan High Court found that the Data Protection Act applied retrospectively.
Background to the case
Huduma Namba as initially proposed
In January 2019, the Kenyan Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendment) Act No. 18 of 2018 came into effect, introducing a raft of amendments…
Content Type: News & Analysis
After almost 20 years of presence of the Allied Forces in Afghanistan, the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement in February 2020 on the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan by May 2021. A few weeks before the final US troops were due to leave Afghanistan, the Taliban had already taken control of various main cities. They took over the capital, Kabul, on 15 August 2021, and on the same day the President of Afghanistan left the country.
As seen before with regime…
Content Type: Report
Human rights defenders across the world have been facing increasing threats and harms as result of the use of digital and technological tools used by governments and companies which enable the surveillance, monitoring and tracking of individuals and communities. They are continuously at risk of violence, intimidation and surveillance as a direct consequence of the work they do. Such surveillance has been shown to lead to arbitrary detention, sometimes to torture and possibly to extrajudicial…
Content Type: Long Read
This report is available in English.
La mayoría de los documentos nacionales de identidad y demás documentos emitidos por autoridades estatales incluyen un marcador de género. Estos marcadores suelen recibir el nombre de “marcador de sexo” aunque este término no sea preciso. La presencia de dichos marcadores, especialmente en los certificados de nacimiento, promueve el énfasis de nuestra sociedad en el género como criterio de asignación de identidades, roles y responsabilidades sociales. Al…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Today, the European Commission has concluded its Phase II in-depth review of the proposed acquisition of the health and fitness tracker Fitbit by Google, deciding that the merger can go through. While we welcome the commitments put forward by Google to mitigate some risks of compromising individuals' rights and competition, PI considers the effects of this merger will further strengthen Google's capacity to exploit our data.
On 15 June 2020, Google formally notified the European Commission of…
Content Type: News & Analysis
An excerpt of this piece was first published in June 2020 in Adbusters, an international not-for-profit magazine produced by a global collective of artists and activists who want to 'shake up complacent consumer culture'.
Big oil. Big tobacco. Big pharma. How did we let ‘big tech’ happen? You would have thought humanity would learn its lesson. That nothing good comes of the mass accumulation and concentration of power into the hands of so few.
The internet was meant to be different. No…
Content Type: Press release
The new satirical video is a critique of the government's reliance on 'technological solutionism' in the fight against Coronavirus and increasingly across public services more widely, and their willingness to then scapegoat ‘mutant algorithms’ when their hopes for technological panaceas inevitably fail.
The two-minute video splices together clips of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, cleverly editing his speeches so that he mouths sentences such as:
'Coronavirus won’t affect you if your immunity…
Content Type: Case Study
Privacy matters. It matters when you’re walking the streets of your home town and when you’re fleeing your home in search of safety. It matters if you’re at a protest or if you’re in bed.
Our wellbeing in each of these instances depends on the protection of our privacy. No situation can be fully understood in isolation.
Unjustifiable intrusions on our privacy become a weapon to eradicate communities and prey upon refugees and asylum seekers, push people away from protests in fear of…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Banning TikTok? It's time to fix the out-of-control data exploitation industry - not a symptom of it
Chinese apps and tech companies have been at the forefront of the news recently. Following India's ban of 59 chinese apps in July, President Trump announced his desire to ban TikTok, shortly followed by his backing of Microsoft's intention to buy the US branch of its parent company ByteDance. Other than others lip syncing his public declaration, what does President Trump fear from this app, run by a firm, based in China?
It's all about that data
One clear answer emerges: the exploitation of…
Content Type: Case Study
Numerous sexist, mysoginistic, homophobic and racist practices are flourishing online, in ways that are harder for national authorities to stop than when abuse takes place offline. One of these practices is ‘revenge pornography’, which involves online distribution of private sexual images without the consent of the person depicted.
One victim of image based sexual abuse (more commonly known as revenge porn): Chrissy Chambers. Chrissy was 18 years old when her boyfriend convinced her to spend…
Content Type: Press release
MI6 has been forced to apologise to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal after two of its officers asked court staff to return documents relating to MI6’s use of agents and not show them to judges. The Tribunal suggested MI6’s actions were “inappropriate interference”.
The revelation emerged in an ongoing legal case considering what crimes intelligence informants are allowed to commit, after it was revealed that MI5 maintains a secret policy under which agents can be “authorised” to…
Content Type: Explainer
Definition
An immunity passport (also known as a 'risk-free certificate' or 'immunity certificate') is a credential given to a person who is assumed to be immune from COVID-19 and so protected against re-infection. This 'passport' would give them rights and privileges that other members of the community do not have such as to work or travel.
For Covid-19 this requires a process through which people are reliably tested for immunity and there is a secure process of issuing a document or other…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Name: Google/Fitbit merger
Age: Gestating
Appearance: A bit dodgy. One of the world’s biggest tech giants, trying to purchase a company that makes fitness tracking devices, and therefore has huge amounts of our health data.
I don’t get it. Basically Google is trying to buy Fitbit. As if Google doesn’t already have enough data about us, it now wants huge amounts of health data too.
Oh, Fitbit, that’s that weird little watch-type-thing that people get for Christmas, wear for about a month…
Content Type: Video
Immediately following the UK general election in December 2019, we worked with Open Rights Group to commission a YouGov poll about public understanding and public opinion about the use of data-driven campaigning in elections.
The poll used a representative sample of 1,664 adults across the UK population.
'Data-driven political campaigning' is about using specific data about you to target specific messages at you. So, for this might involve knowing that you are, for example, likely to…
Content Type: Long Read
Monday, 16 June 2025
It’s 7:33 am. Lila’s GoogBit watch vibrates. “You got 6 hours and 57 minutes of sleep last night, including 2 hours and 12 minutes of deep sleep”, the watch reads. “In total, you tossed and turned for 15 minutes only”. Taking into account Lila’s online browsing activity, her sleep pattern, the recent disruptions in some of her other biorhythms, as well as her daily schedule, GoogBit watch has calculated the very best minute to wake her up.
Content Type: Press release
Today, the ICO has issued a long-awaited and critical report on Police practices regarding extraction of data from people's phones, including phones belonging to the victims of crime.
The report highlights numerous risks and failures by the police in terms of data protection and privacy rights. The report comes as a result of PI’s complaint, dating back to 2018, where we outlined our concerns about this intrusive practice, which involves extraction of data from devices of victims, witnesses…
Content Type: Press release
On 15 June 2020, Google formally notified the European Commission of its proposed acquisition of Fitbit, enabling them to capture a massive trove of sensitive health data that will expand and entrench its digital dominance. Privacy International is calling on EU regulators to block the merger.
In November 2019, Google announced its plan to acquire Fitbit, a company that produces and sells health tracking technologies and wearables - including smartwatches, health trackers and smart scales -…
Content Type: Video
Given everything that's happening at the moment around the world, we've decided to postpone our episode on ID in Kenya until next week.
You can listen and subscribe to the podcast where ever you normally find your podcasts:
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And more...
Some of the resources we mentioned in the episode can be found here:
ACLU: know your rights: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-…
Content Type: Advocacy
Last week, Privacy International joined more than 30 UK charities in a letter addressed to the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, following his recent declaration, asking him to lift No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) restrictions.
Since 2012, a ‘NRPF condition’ has been imposed on all migrants granted the legal right to live and work in the UK. They are required to pay taxes, but they are not permitted to access the public safety net funded by those taxes.
This is not a topic we are known…
Content Type: News & Analysis
This week, we read that a former Apple contractor who blew the whistle on the company’s programme to listen to users’ Siri recordings has decided to go public, in protest at the lack of action taken as a result of the July 2019 disclosures. The news adds to a series of revelations that have been reported over the past months.
While the issue raises serious questions regarding the compatibility of such practices with data protection laws, at the same time, it highlights a wider problem that…
Content Type: Case Study
You have the right to decent standards and dignity at work, and the right to join a union to protect yourself and your rights. That might come as a shock to Amazon - who have been using Covid-19 as a reason to undermine those rights.
Chris Smalls, an organiser and now former Amazon warehouse assistant manager, led a walkout at a New York City facility and within days he’d been fired under a dubious pretext.
The walkout was to ensure workers’ safety - they were asking for the warehouse to be…
Content Type: Long Read
Today is 1st May, an international day of protest. It also marks a year since PI launched our new programme of work called ‘Defending Democracy and Dissent’.
One year on we find ourselves in a situation where 1 May protests in the streets will not be going ahead. Rights have been restricted around the world. Sadly we’re seeing some actors exploit this public health crisis to enhance their own power, expanding surveillance and opportunism.
Against this challenging back-drop we wanted to…
Content Type: Explainer
In a scramble to track, and thereby stem the flow of new cases of Covid-19, Governments around the world are rushing to track the locations of their populace. One way to do this is to leverage the metadata held by mobile service providers (telecommunications companies - "Telcos" - such as Hutchison 3 (Also known as Three), Telefonica (Also known as O2), Vodafone, and Orange) in order to track the movements of a population, as seen in Italy, Germany and Austria, and with the European Commission…
Content Type: Case Study
Over the past decade targeted advertisement has become exponentially more invasive. To enable targeted advertisement, massive amounts of data about individuals are collected, shared and processed often without their knowledge or consent. This information about us is then used to profile us and micro-target us to sell us products or influence our views.
This is a significant intrusion to our privacy inevitably affects our perogative not to reveal our thoughts; not to have our thoughts…
Content Type: Long Read
On 15th April Margaret Atwood, author of the Handmaid's Tale, gave an interview to BBC Radio 5 Live where she commented that ‘people may be making arrangements that aren’t too pleasant, but it’s not a deliberate totalitarianism’. You can read more about the interview in the Guardian.
While we agree with Margaret Atwood that we are not necessarily entering an era of "deliberate totalitarianism" we have written the following open letter (download link at the bottom of the page) to her as a ‘…