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Content type: Advocacy
We responded to the Home Office consultation on codes of practices under the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Act 2024 (IPAA). Our response focused on (1) the draft codes relating to bulk personal datasets with low or no reasonable expection of privacy, (2) third-party bulk personal datasets and (3) the notices regime. You can download our full response with its 23 recommendations for reform at the bottom of this page.'Low Privacy' Bulk Personal DatasetsThe IPAA introduces a new concept of…
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: Advocacy
While PI recognises the threats posed by cybercrime, PI reiterates the need both for a narrow scope for the proposed Convention, focusing solely on core cyber-dependent crimes, as well as for effective safeguards throughout the entire treaty to ensure human rights are respected and protected, especially in the areas of privacy and freedom of expression. Throughout the negotiations most of proposals by Member States and other stakeholders aimed at restricting the scope of the treaty and…
Content type: Advocacy
BackgroundThe Snowden revelations and subsequent litigation have repeatedly identified unlawful state surveillance by UK agencies. In response, the UK Parliament passed the highly controversial Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA), which authorised massive, suspicionless surveillance on a scale never seen before, with insufficient safeguards or independent oversight.Privacy International led legal challenges to this mass surveillance regime both before and after the Act became law. The Act…
Content type: Advocacy
We are responding to the UK Government's consultation to expand its powers around Technical Capabilities Notices and National Security Notices.
Background
Following Edward Snowden's revelations about the illegal and expansive secret powers of the US and UK intelligence agencies, the UK Government took the opportunity to, rather than reflect on what powers are proportionate in the modern era, to expand its arsenal of surveillance powers.
One of the powers it added was the ability to issue…
Content type: Advocacy
This was submitted by PI and EFF for the sixth session of the Ad Hoc Committee, which is due to consider the text in August 2023.
Our submission covers provisions in the chapters related to procedural measures and law enforcement, as well as international cooperation of the proposed UN Cybercrime treaty (full title: Comprehensive international convention on countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes). We also provide general comments on Article 54…
Content type: Advocacy
PI Opening Statement at PEGA Hearing on "Spyware and ePrivacy"
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Thank you very much for offering us the opportunity to give evidence before this Committee for a second time.
Privacy International (PI) is a London-based non-profit that researches and advocates globally against government and corporate abuses of data and technology. For years we have been tracking the surveillance industry, challenging unlawful surveillance before national courts as well as the Court of…
Content type: Report
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) contributes significantly to security and privacy. For that reason, PI has long been in favour of the deployment of robust E2EE.Encryption is a way of securing digital communications using mathematical algorithms that protect the content of a communication while in transmission or storage. It has become essential to our modern digital communications, from personal emails to bank transactions. End-to-end encryption is a form of encryption that is even more private.…
Content type: Advocacy
Despite repeated recommendations by the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly to review, amend or enact national laws to ensure respect and protection of the right to privacy, national laws are often inadequate and do not regulate, limit or prohibit surveillance powers of government agencies as well as data exploitative practices of companies.
Even when laws are in place, they are seldom enforced. In fact PI notes how it is often only following legal challenges in national or…
Content type: Advocacy
In December 2019 Privacy International made submissions to Police Scotland in relation to documents designed to explain to the public how cyber kiosks will work and what information will be given to victims when Police Scotland extract data from their phone.
Police Scotland rely on 'consent' to seize a phone from a victim. We believe the lack of information provided to the individual regarding extraction, examination, retention, deletion, sharing and search parameters undermines that any…
Content type: Advocacy
Privacy and security are both essential to protecting individuals, including their autonomy and dignity. Undermining privacy undermines the security of individuals, their devices and the broader infrastructure. People need privacy to freely secure themselves, their information, and fully enjoy other rights.
A growing number of governments around the world are embracing hacking to facilitate their surveillance activities. When governments hack for surveillance purposes, they seek to…
Content type: Advocacy
Introduction
Why We Are So Concerned about Government Hacking for Surveillance
Scope of Our Safeguards
1. Legality
2. Security and Integrity of Systems
3. Necessity and Proportionality
4. Judicial Authorisation
5. Integrity of information
6. Notification
7. Destruction and Return of Data
8. Oversight and Transparency
9. Extraterritoriality
10. Effective Remedy
Commentary on each
1. Legality
2. Security and Integrity of Systems
3. Necessity and Proportionality
4.…
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: Advocacy
The powers set out in the Investigatory Powers Act are wide ranging, opaque and lacking in adequate safeguards. The Government have now published updated Draft Codes of Practice for certain parts of the Act. Unfortunately, the Codes do little to solve the Act’s problems. Instead, they add little transparency, occasionally expand powers, and undermine some of the limited safeguards in the Investigatory Powers Act. These Codes demand close scrutiny. The unusually short timeframe for…
Content type: Advocacy
On 28 June 2017, Privacy International sent a letter and briefing to the Mexican government following reports indicating that Mexican authorities had used NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to target journalists and human rights defenders working to expose government corruption and human rights abuses. NSO Group is a surveillance technology company that sells products and services, including malware, exclusively to government clients.
These attacks were designed to compromise the mobile phones of…
Content type: Advocacy
Privacy International generally opposes hacking as a tool for surveillance. While the DDL Orlando is an opportunity to fill the current legislative gap in the use of hacking for investigative purposes, PI believes that it falls short of the requirements of existing international human rights law.
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: Advocacy
On 20 March 2015, Privacy International and Open Rights Group submitted comments on the UK Government's draft Equipment Interference Code of Practice.
The UK has been hacking for over a decade, yet the release of the draft Code of Practice is the first time the UK intelligence services have sought public authorisation for their activities. Indeed, it is the first time the intelligence services have publicly acknowledged they engage in hacking.
Unfortunately, the draft Code of…