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Posts about Privacy International
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UK spy agency GCHQ has the extraordinary powers to hack into your phone and computer, enabling them to download all content, log keystrokes, and even switch on your mic and camera - all secretly and totally imperceptibly. And they can do this at scale, hacking potentially thousands or even millions of people not suspected of any crime. Outrageously, the UK governmnet wants to make it harder for you to legally challenge them if they hack you. The government wants to limit your right to challenge them, so that a Tribunal would have the last word if you felt you were unlawfully hacked. In no other area of law does justice stop at a tribunal - you can always take your case to a higher court if you or your lawyer think a tribunal got the law wrong. Why does the government want to be able to hack you and then limit your access to justice?
We are Privacy International, a UK-based charity, and we've been fighting the UK government's hacking powers for years. On 3-4 December we were at the Supreme Court to fight against government hacking.
Ask us anything about government hacking. Learn about why we took the government to court, why we are so concerned about the government's hacking powers and how this case is so important in terms of the balance of power between the individual and the state. Or you can just ask us what we eat for breakfast before taking the governement to court.
UPDATE: WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO FINISH THE AMA AT 5PM GMT. WE'VE REALLY ENJOYED IT, HOPE YOU HAVE TOO!
UPDATE: THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL THE EXCELLENT QUESTIONS. WE TRIED TO GET THROUGH EVERYTHING THAT WAS POSTED BY 5PM. SORRY TO ANYONE WHO POSTED AFTER THIS. WE HOPE TO SEE YOU ANOTHER TIME!
UPDATE: IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING OUR WORK, PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING TO OUR FUNDRAISING APPEAL: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/hackable/
Proof: https://twitter.com/privacyint/status/1070325361718759425
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We're trying to get 1 million EU citizens to sign our European Citizen's Initative to tell the European Commission to ban biometric mass surveillance.
Unfortunately if you're not an EU citizen you can't sign this petition BUT you should still be worried about facial recognition - and - if you're in the US - you can sign this peition aimed at banning facial recognition federally being run by a coalition of organisations including Fight for the Future and Colour of Change.
Facial recognition, and other forms of biometric mass surveillance, stand against our fundamental rights and values, but government and companies are still buying, installing, and using it despite repeated studies suggesting it's racist and doesn't always work very well with terrible consequences. Even if the technology wasn't flawed it would still be deeply invasive, with the potential to create a surveillance regime beyond any we've seen before.
We're also working with our partners around the world to challenge facial recognition as it pops up in countries like Uganda and to challenge individual companies who take up facial recognition or who's practices fall short.
We'll be here from 10am BST/ 3am CA PST on the 16th until 4pm BST / 11:00 PST on the 18th!
We are: Edin - Advocacy Director at PI (using /privacyintl) Ioannis - Legal Officer at PI (using /privacyintl) Nuno - Technologist at PI (using /privacyintl) Caitlin - Campaigns Officer at PI (using /privacyintl) Ella - Policy and Campaigns Officer at EDRi (using /Ella_from_EDRi)
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We are Privacy International (PI). PI challenges overreaching state and corporate surveillance, so that people everywhere can have greater security and freedom through greater personal privacy.
Verification Photo for this AMA
In December 2018, we revealed how some of the most widely used apps in the Google Play store automatically send personal data to Facebook the moment they are launched. That happens even if you don't have a Facebook account or are logged out of the Facebook platform (our talk on the subject is here)
As of Today:
We have retested all apps in from our original study.
A number of apps no longer transfer personal data to Facebook the moment a users opens the app.
However, many apps still exhibit the same behaviour we described in our original report. These apps automatically transfer personal data to Facebook the moment a user opens the app, before people are able to agree or consent. This happens whether people have a Facebook account or not, or whether they are logged into Facebook or not.
In addition, we have also released our testing environment, so that others can expand on our work.
Frederike Kaltheuner, PI's Lead on Corporate Exploitation and Christopher Weatherhead, Technology Officer will be here to discuss our research, findings and our environment!
This AMA is now closed, thank you so much for your great questions! Special thanks to r/technology for hosting us
Edit: Thanks so kind stranger for the gold!