News and Analysis

N&A, Long Reads, Press Release

News & Analysis
German surveillance technology company Trovicor played a central role in expanding the Ethiopian government's communications surveillance capacities, according to a joint investigation by Privacy International and netzpolitik.org. The company, formerly part of Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), provided
Press release
The British Government has admitted its intelligence services have the broad power to hack into personal phones, computers, and communications networks, and claims they are legally justified to hack anyone, anywhere in the world, even if the target is not a threat to national security nor suspected
News & Analysis
Today, on behalf of 92 human rights organisations around the world, an oral statement was delivered before the United Nations Human Rights Council, calling on the Council to establish a UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy Negotiations are on-going at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva
Press release
The UK Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee's report provides a long-awaited official confirmation that the British government is engaging in mass surveillance of communications. Far from allaying the public's concerns, the ISC's report should trouble every single person who uses a
News & Analysis
This Sunday is International Women's Day. You could celebrate the considerable progress in legislating for women's equal rights. You could join a protest against political and legal inequality, discrepancies in women's access to healthcare, education and other social goods. You could thank your mom
News & Analysis
FREAK, the latest security vulnerability to be exposed that has implications for millions of supposedly secure websites, is just the most recent example of something privacy and security advocates have been saying for some time: when governments meddle with our security technologies, it hurts us all
News & Analysis
The focus on the right to privacy continues at the United Nations, with Kenya, Turkey, and Sweden being recently challenged over their surveillance practices during the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review of States' human rights records. The explicit mention of the right to privacy in
Press release
Privacy International today has launched a platform and campaign to allow anyone in the world to request whether Britain’s intelligence agency GCHQ has illegally spied on them. The platform and campaign has been developed in response to a recent court ruling that GCHQ unlawfully obtained millions of
News & Analysis
Privacy International, Bytes for All and other human rights groups are celebrating a major victory against the Five Eyes today as the UK surveillance tribunal rules that GCHQ acted unlawfully in accessing millions of private communications collected by the NSA up until December 2014. Today’s
Long Read
As Privacy International celebrates Friday's victory against Britain’s security services - the first such victory this century - we cannot help but feel the success is bittersweet. After all, we may have convinced the Investigatory Powers Tribunal that GCHQ was acting unlawfully in accessing NSA
Press release
British intelligence services acted unlawfully in accessing millions of people’s personal communications collected by the NSA, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled today. The decision marks the first time that the Tribunal, the only UK court empowered to oversee GHCQ, MI5 and MI6, has ever ruled
News & Analysis
A year after the Eyes Wide Open program was launched here at Privacy International, we are just beginning to scratch the surface of the processes and justifications that agencies like GCHQ use to make their spying legally compliant. Tocqueville, a great philosopher of law stated: “If they prize
News & Analysis
Late last year, the newly-elected government of Indonesia began to take steps which are almost unheard of today: reforming government communications surveillance powers. The much-needed development, on the back of the victory of President Joko Widodo, comes at a critical moment in the country's
Long Read
Modern day government surveillance is based on the simple concept of “more is more” and “bigger is better”. More emails, more text messages, more phone calls, more screenshots from Skype calls. The bigger the haystack, the more needles we can find. Thanks to Edward Snowden, we know that this
News & Analysis
UPDATE: Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has announced plans to disband Argentina's intelligence agency. Go here for more, and keep reading below. This post was originally published on 20 January 2015 by Privacy International's partner in Argentina, the Asociación por los
News & Analysis
Intelligence sharing agreements can be open and transparent. In fact, the Five Eyes have already disclosed information sharing agreements that relate to key international law enforcement and national security measures. They’re called mutual legal assistance treaties, or MLATs, and they’ve existed