Recent News

Advocacy

UK MPs ignore concerned constituents questions about Facial Recognition Technology

In this piece, we unpack the responses received from UK Members of Parliament between November 2023 and June 2024 following the initial launch of our campaign “The End of Privacy in Public”, and discuss the current state of regulation of FRT in the UK. In doing so, we reiterate our call for FRT’s use to be effectively regulated.

Key Resources

Pupils with barcodes for faces sit in a classroom

Securitising Education

How EdTech is turning schools into mass surveillance spaces.

Long Read

Mock-up AI chatbot conversation between a human user and an AI chatbot over a gradient blue/purple background with white text boxes and a red text box from the AI bot that says 'Your Ad Here.'

From chatbots to adbots: sharing your thoughts with advertisers

AI chatbots are now being used everyday across different industries and recreationally. We consider the growing possibility that these AI tools are the next home of the multi-billion-dollar advertising industry.

Advocacy

PI’s briefing: A critical examination of facial recognition implementation in educational spaces

The expansion of facial recognition in educational spaces raises serious human rights concerns, urging states to ban the technology and implementers to stop using it.

Key Resources

PI’s briefing: A critical examination of facial recognition implementation in educational spaces

The expansion of facial recognition in educational spaces raises serious human rights concerns, urging states to ban the technology and implementers to stop using it.

Advocacy

Privacy International's response to the College of Policing consultation on the 'ethical use of data and technologies guidance'

Privacy International (PI) provided a written response to the College of Policing consultation on the 'ethical use of data and technologies guidance' through which they sought feedback on two new authorised professional practices (APP) on data ethics and data-driven technologies.

Long Read

Cartoon children in an ominous red classroom under a camera, they have barcodes for faces

Studying under Surveillance: the securitisation of learning

EdTech systems are often less about teaching than they are monitoring. Here, we explore the increasing web of surveillance children are experiencing in schools.

News & Analysis

Especialista da ONU recomenda a proibição do reconhecimento facial nas escolas.

A tecnologia de reconhecimento facial prejudica a educação das crianças e deve ser banida das instituições educacionais, diz especialista da ONU.

News & Analysis

UN expert recommends ban on facial recognition in schools.

Facial recognition technology harms children’s education, and should be banned from educational institutions, UN Expert says.

Long Read

Digital health, big tech and your privacy

Introduction Harnessing new digital technology to improve people’s health is now commonplace across the world. Countries and international organisations alike are devising digital health strategies and looking to emerging technology to help solve tricky problems within healthcare. At the same time

Long Read

Image of smart phone with smokescreen and fingerprint icon lit up in blue.

Non-fitted devices in the Home Office’s surveillance arsenal: Investigating the technology behind GPS fingerprint scanners

Expanding beyond GPS ankle tags, the Home Office has since Autumn 2022 been issuing so-called non-fitted devices (NFDs) to migrants who are on immigration bail and who are subject to electronic monitoring conditions. We undertook some technical research into NFDs to investigate the intrusiveness of this surveillance technology.

Long Read

Cartoon children sitting in a green classroom under a camera, they have barcode faces

The (un)avoidable rise of Edtech in educational spaces

This piece highlights concerns over the increasing use of data-intensive technologies in educational spaces (EdTech) and examines - among other things - how their unchecked implementation can jeopardize students' rights and education through potential privacy violations, discrimination, and the lack of student input in the adoption of these technologies.

Long Read

The rise of the Surveillance Databases

Surveillance databases are on the rise all around us and with them comes a wider array of issues. Here we begin to unpack these concerns and discuss some of the prominent global drivers of this trend.

Long Read

Protecting personal data during elections – the Council of Europe's new guidelines on the processing of personal data for the purposes of voter registration and authentication

in June 2024 the Council of Europe adopted its Guidelines on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data for the purposes of voter registration and authentication. PI welcomes these very comprehensive Guidelines which complement a previous set of recommendations outlining the safeguards for the Processing of Personal Data by and for Political Campaigns.

News & Analysis

Automating the hostile environment: uncovering a secretive Home Office algorithm at the heart of immigration decision-making

“IPIC” ("Identify and Prioritise Immigration Cases”) is an algorithm utilised by the UK Home Office that automatically identifies and recommends migrants for particular immigration decisions or enforcement action. After a year of submitting Freedom of Information Act requests, we finally received some information on this secretive AI tool used to decide the fate of migrants.

Key Resources

A black and white sign showing the words Polling Station and a left pointing arrow

Election Technology in Kenya

Electoral processes - along with elections themselves - are one of the largest government data-gathering exercises undertaken outside of censuses (periodic governmental counts of a country's population). This makes electoral processes ripe for data exploitation and abusing the privacy of individual electors.

News & Analysis

Sign saying "Polling station" with green-blue gradient over the top

Our new tech explainer on election technologies in Kenya

We’ve published a new tech explainer on election technologies in Kenya. The explainer takes a deep dive into the technologies employed to manage and administer the election process in Kenya, such as biometric voter registration (BVR), voter identification, results transmission, and candidate

Advocacy

Elections Technology - Our Recommendations #1: General Recommendations, BVR, EVID and Results Transmission

When it comes to elections around the world, we find ourselves in a terrain that is more and more populated by digital technologies, which have an increasingly critical impact upon the realisation of democracy. Digital technologies used in the context of elections offer new opportunities to support

Explainer

Election Technology in Kenya

Key Resources

Examples of algorithmic management abuses

Companies are increasingly tracking their workers and deploying unaccountable algorithms to make major employment decisions over which workers have little or no control or understanding. While gig economy workers, content creators and warehouse operatives are at the sharp end of the algorithmic black-box, opaque and intrusive surveillance practices are embedding themselves across many industries and workplaces.

Long Read

Decoding vertical tech integrations: why do they matter?

From the Amazon rainforests to subsaharan Africa, tech companies seek to expand their dominance by investing in connectivity infrastructure. While this has certainly brought some benefits, it also raises concerns about big tech's expansion into new territories.

Long Read

European and African continents with spider webs

“When Spiders Share Webs”: Unveiling privacy threats of EU-funded INTERPOL policing programme in West Africa

An insight to our briefing “When Spiders Share Webs” that explores the role the EU-funded INTERPOL programme, the West African Police Information System (WAPIS), in externalising EU borders by transferring interoperable data-driven policing capabilities to West African nations.

Report

PI Briefing, When Spiders Share Webs, Cover Page Screenshot

When Spiders Share Webs: The creeping expansion of INTERPOL’s interoperable policing and biometrics entrench externalised EU borders in West Africa

Our briefing “When Spiders Share Webs” explores the role the EU-funded INTERPOL programme, the West African Police Information System (WAPIS), in externalising EU borders by transferring data-driven policing capabilities to West African nations.

Long Read

Your NEW guide to surveillance human rights standards is here

A glimpse into what you can find in the new version of PI’s Guide to International Law and Surveillance. From surveillance of public spaces to spyware and encryption, it’s got everything!

Key Resources

A cartoon woman overlaid with text that reads Preconceived, documentary screening. Panel discussion on the implications of tech and surveillance on privacy and reproductive rights

Privacy International will be hosting a screening of 'Preconceived'

To coincide with International Safe Abortion Day, Privacy International will be hosting a screening of 'Preconceived', a documentary which looks at the rise of crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) in the United States, and follows how two women when seeking abortion care were led to CPCs.

Report

PI’s Guide to International Law and Surveillance

PI’s Guide to International Law and Surveillance providing the most hard-hitting results that reinforce and strengthen the core principles and standards of international law on surveillance.

Key Resources

Terms of Reference: Developing a microsite for recommendations for algorithmic transparency

Privacy International (PI) has been working on how best to protect workers subjected to algorithmic decision making in their workplace. As part of this work, it is now finalising a set of recommendations for gig economy platforms to help them improve their employee's working conditions.

Advocacy

Privacy International's response to ILO questionnaire on realizing decent work in the platform economy

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is developing a new legal standard to support decent work in the platform economy. Privacy International has submitted its views on the risks to the privacy, autonomy and decency of workers posed by the use of automated decision-making. This is with the aim of informing the forthcoming discussion on the standard at the 2025 and 2026 International Labour Conferences.

Featured Campaigns

The End of Privacy in Public

We’re facing the end of privacy in public, because of the unchecked rise of facial recognition

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