Privacy International
@privacyint
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For a world where technology will empower and enable us, not exploit our data for profit and power. Find us on mastodon: https://t.co/vTdLm4qChC
Joined February 2009
If you didn't know, you can also find us on Mastodon and Bluesky! 👇. Mastodon: Bluesky: ⛅️.
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WhatsApp's notification to accept its new policy or lose your account is wrong on so many levels we need a short thread to talk about it . 🧵👇 1/9.
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People from ethnic minorities have a higher chance of being targeted for their participation in #BlackLivesMatter protests. Read more about this selective targeting and what can be done to reduce its recurrence:.
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MASSIVE - Court documents reveal UK intelligence agency unlawfully spied on Privacy International. We have been fighting against mass #surveillance for years. Updates to come.
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Now that #WhatsApp have updated their terms, forcing users to share their data with #Facebook, here's our suggested update to that notification you see at the top of your chats. #WhatsappNewPolicy #WhatsappPrivacy
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WE WON. After a five year battle, the UK High Court agreed with us: general warrants defy 250 years of common law jurisprudence. Read our press release 👇.
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NEW deep-dive analysis of today's European Court of Human Rights judgment by PI lawyers @CWilsonPalow @scarletprim. The judgment says that UK laws allowing #masssurveillance violate human rights. We brought the case after 2013 @Snowden revelations.
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Six years after the @Snowden revelations, two governments describe their mass surveillance programmes - but who even noticed? . We break down why it matters.
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The rule of law prevailed today! Six years after @Snowden's revelations, the High Court of South Africa declared that bulk interceptions practices are unlawful. The case was brought by @amaBhungane, we intervened with @r2kcampaign.
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Today, the Grand Chamber of the @ECHR_CEDH, Europe’s highest human rights court, confirms UK surveillance regime was unlawful. In 2013, after @Snowden's revelations, we brought the UK government to court together with many other NGOs. More on the judgment soon.
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First this goes to show how much Facebook values their users' data over their users. "Accept our data grab or get out" is pretty far from what consent should look like under laws like GDPR 2/9.
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We are bringing the UK govt to court over their large-scale hacking. We need your support. #FightGovHacking
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During his speech at #OrgCon2019, Edward @Snowden remarked: “People think of 2013 as a surveillance story, but it was really a democracy story”. This is why we should all oppose mass surveillance.
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REVEALED: How British intelligence agencies create & keep dossiers on everyone. Docs here:
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(BTW we've got great guides on how to limit targeted ads on Facebook, and tweak your privacy settings on WhatsApp if you really need to keep using them 🤫 ) 5/9.
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You may have heard that Clearview AI announced it will offer its surveillance tech to Ukraine 🇺🇦. Read more about how surveillance companies exploit war:
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🚨 BREAKING 🚨 .The UK government’s policy of GPS tagging asylum seekers arriving in the UK has been found UNLAWFUL, in a powerful decision by the data protection regulator, @ICOnews. This is huge. 🧵 .
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NEW: We analysed 136 popular web pages about mental health in France, Germany and the UK and found that websites share users' personal data with advertisers and other third parties. Some also leak depression test results. More here:
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Instagram is red, .Facebook is blue, .Whatsapp is green and they are all the same company collecting data about you! #ValentinesDay
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Truth is, Facebook probably just wants your phone number 📱 (if they don't already have it) and your contacts's names and numbers. They've used dubious methods to get it in the past and this could be another way to obtain it 3/9.
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The European Court of Human Rights' judgment on the 10 Human Rights Organisations case is due on 25 May (@ECHR_CEDH). We sat down with @Snowden last year to discuss what this case means for surveillance not only in the UK, but around the world. Watch here to get up to date!
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Why would they want phone numbers so badly? Because they're great globally unique identifiers. Remember: first and foremost Facebook is an advertising company. Your attention is the product 4/9.
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Second, this is further proof that the promises @Facebook made to the EU when buying WhatsApp are long gone. If you need a reminder: .6/9.
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TODAY we filed complaints against 7 companies’ systematic data exploitation. They exploit data about millions of ppl but are rarely challenged. YOU have the right to demand they delete your data. Here's how: . #stopexploitingmydata
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NEW - launch of our global campaign to increase transparency around government #intelligence and #surveillance
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💥 BREAKING 💥. Today, the European Court of Human Rights held the United Kingdom accountable for its digital spying, even when that spying affects people outside of the UK’s borders. Let’s dig into how we got here 👇👇👇.
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@Facebook We are concerned that this announcement may push people - especially vulnerable populations - off the platform, back to using insecure communication methods such as SMS and email. The value of E2EE cannot be overstated. 9/9.
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A global network of activists are tracking #Surveillance #DataExploitation #Misinformation by tech companies and governments in the global fight against #COVID19. But we need your help. Have a look at the measures so far⬇️⬇️. And if you can, help us❤️❤️.
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The partnership was described in the media as Amazon using the content of the NHS website but there is more to it. The contract is partially redacted, and we contest the Department of Health’s take on the notion of public interest.
And then this. Revealed under FOI: Matt Hancock gave entire contents of publicly funded NHS website to Amazon to do whatever it wants with it. Both stories frankly unbelievable. If this is happening *before* a new US trade deal, what on earth lies ahead?.
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@Facebook Third, this is problematic for a number of users and organisations using WhatsApp for sensitive purposes, as it means your data could now be in the hands of an additional player. For example: 8/9.
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We won! The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the Investigatory Powers Tribunal is subject to judicial review before the High Court. The Court's judgment is a major endorsement and affirmation of the rule of law in the UK.
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You may think that uploading photos is a small price to pay for the entertainment of the #FaceAppChallenge, but #FaceApp raises concerns about privacy, manipulation, and data exploitation. Read more here
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MASSIVE news!. NEW ruling today says that UK laws allowing mass surveillance violate human rights!.
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CASE UPDATE: PI, together with 9 other NGOs, challenges UK surveillance regime
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@Facebook This reflects badly on the European Commission, who've just approved the Google-Fitbit merger. Should we expect the same level of commitment from Google? 🤷♂️ . 7/9.
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⚠️ BREAKING - we have uncovered new information about a secretive algorithm the UK immigration authorities (the Home Office) have been using in immigration decision-making. 🧵 .
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We signed a joint letter to the UK Prime Minister urging him to reconsider plans to expand the use of facial recognition technology (FRT) 👇.
🔴We've brought together nearly 30 rights & racial justice groups urging the PM to rethink plans to expand live facial recognition. Authoritarian tech will not fix the country's complex societal challenges - but it will endanger our rights & freedoms. #StopFacialRecognition
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Roses are red.Violets are blue.Your smart tech.Is stalking you . #HappyValentinesDay .#Privacy
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NEW! Today we expose 5 menstruation apps that have been sharing their users' most intimate data about their health and sexual lives with Facebook and other third parties. Read our research:
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Do you use Kayak, Duolingo, Spotify, or Yelp? Then you may want to read our latest research on how these apps, and others, are automatically transferring your data to Facebook.
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On Tuesday we're going to find out the result of our longest running case - challenging UK mass surveillance. This wouldn't have happened without @Snowden - we sat down with him to discuss the case, mass surveillance, and how to fight back. Listen now:
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Why we should all oppose mass surveillance. Surveillance is a power generator. The now unprecedented surveillance capabilities of governments outstrip the laws that are there to safeguard our rights.
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‼️NEWS‼️ Today we file complaints against the GPS tagging of migrants in the UK. We’re asking the Information Commissioner (ICO) & Forensic Science Regulator (FSR) to take action against this inhumane and degrading policy & practice by the Home Office. Read 🧵 to find out more:.
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🚨Hearing is TOMORROW🚨. The outrageous charges against Assange criminalise and endanger journalists around the world. They must be dropped.
This week the UK High Court will hear the US appeal against an earlier ruling that Julian Assange should not be extradited to face criminal charges. Rights groups call on US Attorney General to drop case against Julian Assange #FreeAssangeNOW @IFEX .
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Being arrested for #encryption is like being arrested for locking your front door - blog on mass arrests in #Turkey
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💥 BREAKING 💥. Today, the UK High Court rules that the blanket and secret policy of the Home Office to seize and search asylum seekers’ phones breached their privacy rights. A landmark case led by @GoldJenningsLaw and @dpg_law, in which PI intervened. [Thread 🧵].
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We wrote this guide to explain how US/UK get access to each others' mass surveillance
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🧵News! Apple announces that their end-to-end encrypted iCloud services, Advanced Data Protection, will be available for global users. 🌎☁️.
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⚖️ UK High Court ruled that the blanket seizure of asylum seekers’ phones by Home Office breached privacy rights. Read more about the case here:
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NEWS! Ruling by EU’s highest court finds that UK, French and Belgian mass surveillance regimes must respect privacy, even in the context of national security: .
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Our initial reaction to the judgment from the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights: today's ruling is an important one for privacy and freedom for everyone! .But there's more. Full video here: Press release coming soon!
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Do you know what 'IMSI catchers' are? The UK police can use them to locate, track & grab data from your phone, and they're doing this secretly. We’re working with @libertyhq to shine a light on how your local police force might spy on you. #NeighbourhoodWatched
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BREAKING: Nearly 4 years after our complaint and 2 after starting their investigation, the French data protection authority CNIL finds breaches in Criteo's activities, and proposes a fine of €60 million. Why did this happen and why does it matter? 👇
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💥 NEWS! In a landmark ruling, the UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal found “very serious failings” by MI5 breaching the right to privacy from at least 2016, and that successive Home Secretaries didn't enquire into & resolve this rule breaking, despite the red flags 🚩 . 🧵👇.
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Forceful piece about smartphone data being used to deport refugees. While many are dependent on the access smartphones provide, phones collect a lot of data - incl location data. Data should not be exploited or used against those in vulnerable situations.
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NEW piece about what Zuckerberg forgot to mention (profiling). This is why we need real data protection — not just better privacy settings.
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In December, Google made a major announcement - they're ending their ban on device fingerprinting. This could dramatically reshape the future of web tracking and could have dire consequences on user privacy and your ability to stay safe online.
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Being arrested for #encryption is like being arrested for locking your front door - blog on mass arrests in #Turkey
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61% of apps we tested automatically transfer data to Facebook the moment a user opens the app. Read more in our report.
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We have created a new Twitter bot called @adversarybot. If you follow the bot he will follow you back and share his thoughts about privacy, freedom and humanity with you; and he’ll offer ‘insights’ into who you are, based purely on your published tweets.
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This case was made possible because of @Snowden’s disclosures in 2013, and through the combined work of @ACLU, @Amnesty, @bytesforall, @cancivlib, @EIPR, @tasz_hu, @ICCLtweet, @LRC_southafrica and @libertyHQ.
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WE WON! the fight continues. After we celebrate! 🎉🎉🎉
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Great piece about the myth of anonymised: "It’s convenient to pretend it’s hard to re-identify people, but it’s easy” . Here are a ton of examples of anonymised data fails we complied.
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The use of facial recognition in public spaces makes a mockery of our privacy rights.
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Our take: .End-to-end encryption protects the communications of people across the world; from protestors in Hong Kong, to journalists in Colombia, to human rights defenders in Egypt. Encryption protects all of them. Either it is turned on for everyone, or broken for everyone.
British police will be able to demand social media data directly from American technology giants under a new agreement signed with US government. The Home Office said it would speed up investigations into terrorists, paedophiles and serious criminals.
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It's simply unacceptable that face recognition is being rolled out across London without any form of public debate.
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NEW report reveals a dangerous lack of oversight of secret global #surveillance networks, based on our research with NGOs in 42 countries.
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BREAKING: as a result of our investigation, one of Europe's key data protection authorities has opened an inquiry into Quantcast - a major player in the online tracking industry. Here is our submission that led to the inquiry:
Data Protection Commission opens statutory inquiry into Quantcast International Limited
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Not so fast, Google. Not so fast. 🦘.
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NEWS! .The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has today ruled that UK mass surveillance laws violate the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. [Press release + thread below] .
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‼️BREAKING‼️.PI together w @NOYBeu @HermesCenter @Homo_Digitalis_ have taken legal action against the facial recognition company Clearview AI. 💪🛑. The complaints were submitted to data protection regulators in the UK, France, Austria, Italy and Greece.
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The High Court of South Africa declared today that bulk surveillance activities and foreign signals interception are unlawful and invalid. Case brought by @amaBhungane challenging the legality of #RICA, where we had intervened together with @r2kcampaign.
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Yesterday we launched our appeal challenging police forces’ refusal to disclose information on their purchase and use of #IMSIcatchers. Read our blog to see how we have worked to get the police to be more transparent #freedomofinformation.
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Be the first to see film premiere of the new #Snowden doc #CITIZENFOUR on Oct 17th http://t.co/RIEqt6H8zh.
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Very important and urgent. By our latest count.@facebook provides transparency in only 17% of countries.@google in only 15%.@twitter in only 16%. Shameful that such powerful + global companies have made the deliberate decision to provide some users w transparency & some w nothing.
I recently wrote about the importance of expanding the debate about Facebook’s political ads beyond the US. Case in point: Sri Lanka has a presidential election on Saturday, and FB hasn’t built the same transparency tools it did for the US & India.
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[NEW!] .Today, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled UK mass surveillance laws violate privacy and freedom of expression rights. Who is involved? What are the consequences of this decision? All the answers (and more) in our Q&A! .
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Mandatory SIM card registration eradicates the potential for anonymity of communications. While .it has been exposed as ineffective and inefficient in some countries that have adopted it, its adoption is on the rise:
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Happy Data Protection Day! 🥳🎈. As promised to celebrate #DataPrivacyDay we will be sharing a variety of tools and resources we’ve been producing as part of our efforts to demand effective protection of people and their data.
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Happy Data Protection Day! 🥳. To celebrate#DataPrivacyDay we will be sharing with you throughout the day a variety of tools and resources we’ve been producing as part of our efforts to demand effective protection of people and their data.
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Privacy policies are long. Twitter’s is 12 pages, Instagram’s is 11, Netflix is at 9. Reddit’s comes in shortest at 6 pages, but this still takes an estimated 13 minutes to read, and longer to actually digest. NEW piece about going beyond transparency.
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When we asked to see the redactions on the Amazon/NHS contract, the DHSC said that "the release of the redacted clauses would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Amazon.". There is much more at stake, we said to the @thesundaytimes:
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HUGE: . CJEU Advocate General's Opinion Advises that Mass Surveillance Regime is UNLAWFUL!!!. ⚖️✌🏽. Our preliminary statement:
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Acc. to the terms of use, people give FaceApp ‘a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully-paid, transferable sub-licensable license’ to use or publish the content they upload. Even if you delete the app, it’s unclear what FaceApp does with the data
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[NEW!] Today, we reveal how EU funds are used to support surveillance in non-EU countries. PI and a coalition of civil society organisations demand urgent reforms to EU development aid and cooperation programmes! . More in this thread 👇👇.
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Layers upon layers of insanity. 1)Random data broker has database w info about "pretty much every US citizen”. 2)Database is on publicly accessible server & (obvi) gets hacked. 3)Data broker goes silent. Random companies that exploit data shouldn’t exist.
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Struggling to find the judgment? Don't fret. You can now access the High Court judgment and related documents here:
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“We are being identified without our knowledge or consent, and society needs rules about when that is permissible”, writes Bruce Schneier in the NYT There are many ways you can be identified, some you might not know about. Here are some examples 👇 .1/5.
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Here’s a letter signed by over 450 Amazon employees demanding the company kick Palantir off Amazon Web Services and to institute employee oversight for ethical decisions.
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Why we should all oppose mass surveillance. Surveillance is a power generator. The now unprecedented surveillance capabilities of governments outstrip the laws that are there to safeguard our rights.
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How often do you call your mother? How many Tweets do you send per week?. This information may seem irrelevant, but it's all part of how companies are constructing your financial identity #dataprivacyweek.
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UK police are rolling out new spying technologies that monitor us in public, online and even at home. But they’re not telling the public. That’s not #policingbyconsent. We’re working with @libertyhq to shine a light on police spying #NeighbourhoodWatched
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PI & @TransparencyKit just launched a database w/ over 1500 surveillance company brochures.
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The #police have the ability to #hack your phone remotely, accessing all its content without you knowing. #hacking is 1 of many #surveillance technologies we want the police to be more open about. With @libertyhq. Find out more at #NeighbourhoodWatched
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We created this video that explains how companies exploit your data in totally unexpected ways. Please share!
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Digital surveillance 'worse than Orwell' says new UN privacy chief http://t.co/RycZmARq33(Photograph: Adam Alexander) http://t.co/Bmcpwk5tbv.
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