UK
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The UK will treat online images of immigrants crossing the Channel as a criminal offence
On 17 January, the United Kingdom (UK) government announced that online platforms will have to proactively remove images of immigrants crossing the Channel in small boats under a new amendment to be tabled to the Online Safety Bill. The announcement, intended to bolster the UK’s hostile immigration policy, has been met with concern among the British public and charities working with people on the move.
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Update: UK’s Online Safety Bill heralds a trio of surveillance
The UK’s Online Safety Bill was back in the Westminster Parliament in December It had been stalled for five months whilst the new British government made a few changes. A Parliamentary debate on Monday (5 December 2022) revealed the shift in policy direction for the first time. It’s a relatively small change with big implications. Read more about the changes.
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Securing privacy: Privacy International on end-to-end encryption
EDRi member Privacy International's (PI) report on end-to-end encryption (E2EE) analyses and defends expanding the use of E2EE to protect our communications. It defines E2EE, delves into its human rights implications, briefly addresses some prominent proposals for government access to E2EE content, and concludes with PI’s recommendations regarding E2EE.
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WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep
In the past few years, the pandemic and the shift to working from home have bolstered the use of remote surveillance software to monitor employees. In 2020, global demand for employee monitoring software increased 108 per cent by April and 70 per cent by May 2020 compared to pre-pandemic times. At the same time, search engine queries for "How to monitor employees working from home" increased by 1,705 per cent in April and 652 per cent in May 2020 compared to the previous year.
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The UK Data Reform Bill and the British Bill of Rights: a tragedy in two acts
The dust hasn’t settled since plans to undermine everyone’s right to data protection were announced, but the UK Government are at it again. Plans to ditch the Human Rights Act in the UK were just unveiled, in a combined effort to steamroll the rule of law and the freedoms we have always taken for granted. EDRi member Open Rights Group explains how the impact of this constitutional butchery reverberates in data protection, and why both the Data Reform Bill and the Bill of Rights follow a common thread.
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Challenging the use of GPS tags to monitor asylum seekers in the UK
The latest rollout of GPS tags to monitor migrants is another step in creating a 'hostile environment' for asylum seekers in the UK.
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Post-Brexit data protection laws are coming, and we should all be concerned about it
The UK Government are expected to reveal their Post-Brexit data protection bill on 10 May. They are proposing a framework that frames personal data in terms of economic assets and aims to "cut red tape" to promote their commercial use. These ideas draw considerable support among corporate lobbyists and large technology companies, which would no doubt leverage the "UK example" to advocate for weaker data protection standards in Europe. In turn, understanding and opposing these changes should not be seen as a domestic issue, but as a major threat for digital rights advocates across the globe.
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UK High Court rules blanket seizure of asylum seekers’ phones breached Article 8 ECHR
On 25 March 2022, the UK High Court ruled that the Home Office acted unlawfully and breached human rights and data protection laws by operating a secret, blanket policy of seizing, retaining and extracting data from the mobile phones of asylum seekers arriving by small boat to UK shores between April and November 2020.
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The Online Safety Bill: punishing victims
The government has today announced two new regressive and unworkable additions to the Online Safety Bill. With each new announcement, the Bill demonstrates itself to make the online world less safe for the people it claims to protect, particularly LGBTQ+, survivors of abuse and ethnic minorities.
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How a company illegally exploited the data of 14 million mothers and babies
If you’re in the UK you may know Bounty by the packs of samples they distribute to pregnant women at midwife apps. You might not know that they were also found to have illegally shared data of +14 million mums and babies with 39 companies. Bounty collected personal data from a variety of channels both online and offline: its website, mobile app.
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Biometric ‘permission to travel’ scheme in Borders Bill will affect tens of millions of people
The attack on the asylum system proposed by the UK government in the Nationality and Borders Bill has provoked outrage. However, the Bill also includes proposals to introduce an electronic 'permission to travel' scheme that would involve gathering biometric and other data from tens of millions of people. The UK Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) is conducting legislative scrutiny on the Bill. EDRi's member Statewatch submitted written observations to the inquiry last week.
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UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal finds the regime for bulk communications data to be incompatible with EU law
The UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal issued a declaration in EDRi member Privacy International's challenge to the bulk communications data regime, finding UK legislation to be incompatible with EU law.
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