11 April 2022
Function creep, altered affordances, and safeguard rollbacks
Alongside the expansion of surveillance regimes, there is a parallel development of equal importance, through what could be described as safeguard rollbacks. These are different from surveillance creep, in that the aim and purpose of surveillance mandates remains largely the same, but the associated safeguards are gradually weakened. These rollbacks have generally taken place where mandates were initially put in place with strict limits to ensure proportionality and legal certainty, but where the effectiveness of those mandates are later argued to be limited due to the safeguards themselves. Continue reading >>
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08 April 2022
Something Wicked This Way Comes
One crisis after another has been offered as a justification for the establishment of a comprehensive surveillance apparatus throughout the past 20 years, while third country nationals were gradually stripped of their rights to privacy and data protection, transforming the movement of innocent individuals into suspicious, potentially terrorist activities. Among the most significant changes in information management in the area of freedom, security and justice, interoperability – the ability of information systems to exchange data – will have the most profound effects on the right to data protection and as such marks the “point of no return”. Continue reading >>
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07 April 2022
The Development of Surveillance Technology in India
India has overhauled its surveillance architecture in a manner which calls into question the separation of powers and accountability mechanisms for the government. The Executive, through orders, has put into place invasive systems which do not have provisions for judicial review or oversight. This absence of oversight raises concerns about potential illegal mass surveillance, as well as the constitutionality of these systems itself. Continue reading >>
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06 April 2022
Public Surveillance before the European Courts
Europe has experienced a significant expansion of state surveillance and counter-terrorism regimes, which demonstrate the increasing appetite of legislators and the executive for the normalisation of surveillance. For long, European Courts offered a powerful pushback against this trend and produced several celebrated victories for fundamental rights over surveillance. However, recent decisions by the CJEU and the ECtHR reveal a different picture, indicating a broader paradigm shift. Continue reading >>
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05 April 2022
On the Internet, No One Knows You’re a Cop
As long as police can continue to exploit the legal fiction of user “consent” to access our private communications, our privacy rights will remain just as fictional. While we’re hopeful that the courts will one-day strike this practice down as violating the Fourth Amendment, more urgent statutory protections are needed. The legislation needn’t be lengthy or complex, it’s not a nuanced question. To the contrary, what we need is a complete and categorical ban on the use of fake accounts by police, letting those who’ve been surveilled sue, and suppressing the evidence that’s obtained at trial. Continue reading >>
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04 April 2022
Hong Kong Surveillance Law
though 9/11 did not immediately result in a dramatic expansion of the surveillance state in Hong Kong as was often seen in the west, twenty years later a similar process is now well underway. Though Hong Kong’s surveillance and privacy laws have long been relatively deferential to the needs of law enforcement, the dramatic legal changes occasioned by the introduction of a new ‘national security law’ in 2020 suggest that the population will be under increasing forms of surveillance in the coming years. Continue reading >>
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08 February 2022
When Your Own Spyware Hits Home
A newspaper report from January 18, 2022, revealed that the Israeli police has been using a spy software to spy on its own citizens. This affair illustrates how existing Israeli privacy law is inadequate for dealing with the types of privacy violations enabled by new technologies. But the ease with which these technologies are used also speaks volumes about the militarization of Israeli society. Continue reading >>
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22 November 2021
Lloyd v Google: towards a more restrictive approach on privacy protection in the UK?
The UK Supreme Court has delivered its much-awaited judgment in Lloyd v Google - a highly significant case for the development of privacy law in the United Kingdom. The Supreme Court paints an overly thin picture of data privacy and raises important concerns about possible divergence from EU standards in the future. Continue reading >>
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30 March 2021
Seeing through the Eye of God
The messenger app Telegram is swamped with bots which gather and disseminate personal data. Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media watchdog, has just moved to block one of the prominent bots, proudly named ‘Eye of God’. While Telegram bots offer certain positive implications through the newfound transparency they afford, these do not override the tremendous privacy risks posed. But even more importantly, there is little the Russian authorities can do to force Eye of God and other bots to respect the rights of data subjects. Continue reading >>
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15 October 2020
‘Keyword Warrants’ Make Every Search A Risk
How many times did you search google today? Few of us know the answer. It’s not just the queries entered into the ubiquitous google search bars, but the countless other apps in the Google ecosystem, constantly harvesting our every question to refine their picture of even the most intimate spheres of our life. In the hands of advertisers, this technology is creepy. But when it is fully exploited by law enforcement agencies, it can be a profound danger to civil society and human rights. Continue reading >>
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