Technology Pill

In January 2023, the UK's Investigatory Powers Tribunal handed down a landmark judgment. The Tribunal held that there were “very serious failings” at the highest levels of MI5 - the UK's domestic intelligence agency - to comply with privacy safeguards from as early as 2014, and that successive Home Secretaries did not to enquire into or resolve these long-standing rule-breaking despite obvious red flags.

In this episode, we talk to Meg Goulding, a lawyer at the UK-based campaigning organisation, Liberty, who was a solicitor instructed on the case, and Nour Haidar, a lawyer and member of the legal team at PI to discuss what this ruling actually means for the ongoing fight against mass surveillance.

The way our data was handled by MI5 amounts to a significant intrusion into potentially millions of people’s fundamental right to privacy. This case was a critical mechanism of holding MI5 accountable for failing to handle the data they hold in a lawful manner. Agencies tasked with protecting national security process huge amounts of sensitive information. Due to the nature of their work, their operations can’t be subjected to the same levels of scrutiny and transparency that we can demand of other government institutions, yet they are not above the law. That is why this case is so important: it is one of the only tools we have to ensure that our right to privacy is respected by the UK intelligence agencies.

- PI's Case page for Liberty and PI v Security Service and Secretary of State for the Home Department IPT/20/01/CH

- PI's Q&A explaining the judgment

- Liberty's case page

- PI's Long-read explaining arguments in the case, including key disclosure

- Home Secretary statement "as compliant as possible"

This week we're having our own little christmas party, discussing things we've achieved throughout 2022. 

Read more about the things we've achieved throughout the year, and donate to PI as much or as little as you can afford.

Credits:  

As ever, with a huge thank you to Sepia! 

dj997 via freesound

This week we speak  to Gillian Tully, the UK’s former forensic regulator about the  importance and challenges that come with trying to ensure that forensic  evidence submitted in court is of a high quality.

More about Gillian Tully: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/gillian-tully

Original Phone Extraction podcast: https://privacyinternational.org/video/3786/podcast-extraction

GOS tag complaint: Challenge to systemic quality failures of GPS tags submitted to Forensic Science Regulator

Why Forensics Matter: Immigration officers and the quality of evidence in the UK: https://privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/4740/why-forensics-matter-immigration-officers-and-quality-evidence-uk

Push This Button For Evidence: Digital Forensics: https://privacyinternational.org/explainer/3022/push-button-evidence-digital-forensics

Police Linked to Hacking Campaign to Frame Indian Activists: https://www.wired.com/story/modified-elephant-planted-evidence-hacking-police/

Unpacking the evidence elasticity of digital traces: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311886.2022.2103946

Forensic science and the criminal justice system: a blueprint for change (House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee report): https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldsctech/333/33302.htm

NIST Computer Forensics Tool Testing Program (CFTT) https://www.nist.gov/itl/ssd/software-quality-group/computer-forensics-tool-testing-program-cftt

Post Office Horizon scandal: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56718036

With my fridge as my witness?! https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/3026/my-fridge-my-witness

This week we're talking to Cory Doctorow about his new book Chokepoint Capitalism - coauthored with Rebecca Giblin, his as yet unpublished next book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation, and how corporate power is shaping our rights.

Quick corrections! 

- GDPR compensation is in theory possible through court action: https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/data-protection-and-journalism/taking-your-case-to-court-and-claiming-compensation/

- GDPR Article 80(2) not Section 20 something as I stated! 

Links

- Cory's website: https://craphound.com/

- Chokepoint Capitalism coauthored with Rebecca Giblin: https://doctorow.medium.com/what-is-chokepoint-capitalism-b885c4cb2719

- Giphy and Meta: https://privacyinternational.org/press-release/4911/uk-tribunal-agrees-metas-acquisition-giphy-harms-competition

- Chokepoint Capitalism: the audiobook: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/chokepoint-capitalism-an-audiobook-amazon-wont-sell

- How to leave dying social media platforms (without losing your friends): https://doctorow.medium.com/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms-9fc550fe5ab

- Cory on Mastodon: https://mamot.fr/@doctorow and https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic

- PI on Mastodon: https://mastodon.xyz/@privacyint

- Crad Kilodney documentary: https://vimeo.com/108567007

- Algorithms Exposed: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/825974 or https://algorithms.exposed/

- Bush V Gore election scandal: https://www.britannica.com/event/Bush-v-Gore

- Goldacre report: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/better-broader-safer-using-health-data-for-research-and-analysis

- Amazon and NHS: https://privacyinternational.org/node/3298

- Rida Qadri: https://ridaqadri.net/research/ and some of her writing on tuyul apps: https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvpng/delivery-drivers-are-using-grey-market-apps-to-make-their-jobs-suck-less

- Oh for fuck's sake, not this fucking bullshit again : https://boingboing.net/2018/09/04/illegal-math.html

- Dan Kaminsky's work on Colour blindness: https://dankaminsky.com/2010/12/15/dankam/

- How to get the most out of your Data Subject Access Request: https://privacyinternational.org/explainer/3845/71-tips-how-make-most-out-your-dsar

This week we're talking about Education Technology: what is it? Why are  schools using it? Is it safe? How can we make sure that children aren't  being asked to sacrifice their right to privacy in order to access  their right to an education?

Links

- Read more of our work on EdTech: https://privacyinternational.org/campaigns/edtech

- Find out more about Google Classroom in Denmark: https://www.wired.com/story/denmark-google-schools-data/

- Taser drones: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/06/school-taser-drone-programme-paused-after-ethics-board-exodus

- We're tracking the use of EdTech around the world, you can find out more here: https://privacyinternational.org/example/edtech

This week we speak to Sebastian Meineck, a journalist from Netzpolitik about PimEyes, a free(ish) face search engine similar to Clearview, but for public consumption. 

Please note this podcast was recorded before Sebastian and Netzpolitik were able to talk to PimEyes CEO Gobronidze in person. You can read that interview here: https://netzpolitik.org/2022/pimeyes-ceo-the-user-is-the-stalker-not-the-search-engine/

Links

Find more of Sebastian's work here: https://sebastianmeineck.wordpress.com/

More of Netzpolitik's work on PimEyes here: https://netzpolitik.org/tag/pimeyes/

Read more of PI's work on facial recognition: https://privacyinternational.org/learn/facial-recognition

And our work on Clearview: https://privacyinternational.org/campaigns/get-out-our-face-clearview

In this episode, Alexandrine Pirlot de Corbion, our Director of  Strategy, speaks to Nour El Arnaout, from the Global Health Institute,  American University of Beirut, Lebanon and Yousef Khader, from the  Global Health Development, Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network  and the Faculty of Medicine, Jordan University of Science and  Technology, Jordan, about digital health in the Middle East and North Africa and in particular digital maternal health and family planning  initiatives they are working on, the impact of gender inequality, and  the risks involved.

Nour El Arnaout is a division manager at the Global Health Insitute at the American University of Beirut, where she also co-ordinates the Institutes's  E-Sahha programme focussed on e-health and digital  health. She has more than 7 years experience in projects and programmes  management, operational management and research, and leads the  implementation of large scale field based projects in underserved communities in Lebanon including refugee settlements. She is working on a project called: The Gamification, Artificial Intelligence and mHealth Network for Maternal Health Improvement.

Yousef Khaderb is a professor of Epidemiology and biostatistics at the Faculty of Medicine at the Jordan University of Science and Technology, he is a fellow for public health at the royal college of physicians UK through distinction and has published more than 650 scientific papers in highly reputable journals. He is working on a project called: Governing Digital Personal Data to Strengthen Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Services Delivery in Fragile Settings in Palestine and Jordan.

Both projects are funded by IDRC: https://www.idrc.ca/en.

Links

- Read more from Yousef and Nour about their projects, and gender and power in maternal health: https://ai-med.io/analysis/context-gender-power-and-choices/

- Read more about Nour's project: https://ghi.aub.edu.lb/esp/

- You can read more from Yousef in the below papers which he contributed to:

        - Midwives and women's perspectives on family planning in Jordan: human rights, gender equity, decision-making and power dynamics: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34458635/

        - Perceptions Toward the Use of Digital Technology for Enhancing Family Planning Services: Focus Group Discussion With Beneficiaries and Key Informative Interview With Midwives: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34319250/

        - Do modern family planning methods impact women's quality of life? Jordanian women's perspective: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31615524/

This week we talk to Ina Sander from Cardiff University about how to talk to people about  privacy, drawing on her research looking at how to teach 'critical data  literacy' in schools.   

You can find a resource for teachers we've been working with Ina on here: https://privacyinternational.org/learning-resources/teaching-about-data-resource-educators  

You can read more about critical data literacy here: https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/what-critical-big-data-literacy-and-how-can-it-be-implemented  

You can find the database of resources for teaching about big data and algorithmic systems Ina mentions here: https://www.bigdataliteracy.net/database/  

You can find PI's guides to help you and your loved ones protect yourselves online: https://privacyinternational.org/act

While being the world’s largest provider of aid, Europe also exports  surveillance around the world by training police, providing surveillance  techand building widescale databases. While the benefits for European arms and security companies is clear, how this helps those it’s supposed to is less obvious.

We sat down with investigative journalist Giacomo to talk more about  the impact of this financial flow to security forces and surveillance.

Links

Giacomo’s report on Europe’s Shady Funds to Border Forces in the Sahel https://privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/3223/europes-shady-funds-border-forces-sahel

Giacomo’s report on The European Chase for Saharan Smugglers https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/3347/european-chase-saharan-smugglers

Privacy International’s disclosures on the EU’s surveillance aid https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/4291/surveillance-disclosures-show-urgent-need-reforms-eu-aid-programmes

You can follow Giacomo at @giacomo_zando

Hundreds of  companies around the world which develop and sell surveillance tech used  to spy on people, making everything from malware used by governments to  hack into phones to mass internet surveillance tools to monitor nationwide internet traffic. Italy is one of the main producers.

We spoke to investigative journalists Lorenzo and Riccardo from IRPI Media who have been digging into these companies.

Links

You can check out IRPI Media at https://irpi.eu

Their series on surveillance (in Italian) is at https://irpimedia.irpi.eu/sorveglianze/

Their report on Med-Or (in English) is at https://irpimedia.irpi.eu/en-surveillances-medor-leonardo-marco-minniti/

Their report on Cy4Gate (in English) is at https://irpimedia.irpi.eu/en-surveillances-cy4gate-united-arab-emirates/