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Patients win choice of sharing medical records


Earlier this year, we led the concern that a new NHS data sharing plan would see every patient's medical records uploaded to a new information system without the right to opt-out. We warned at the time that patient records would be out of patient control. On Friday, the Secretary of State confirmed that this will not be the case. We have worked closely with MedConfidential and Privacy International to ensure

The snoopers charter is dead


More than a year ago, we learned that the Home Office was resurrecting it's plan to monitor every British citizens' internet use. Big Brother Watch led the charge against these plans, giving evidence to Parliament, urging our supporters to write to their MPs and being the central force in the media campaign against the so called Snoopers Charter. We highlighted how the Home Office had misrepresented the work of

Can you support Sgt Danny Nightingale?


Three weeks today, Sergeant Danny Nightingale will report to the Military Court Centre in Bulford, Wiltshire for a preparatory hearing. This is as a result of the Service Prosecuting Authority exercising its right to seek a re-trial of Sgt Nightingale. Like many people, Big Brother Watch has been dismayed at the treatment of Sgt Nightingale. Despite his conviction being quashed at the Court of Appeal,

Boom in private investigators risks avoiding surveillance regulation


Our latest report highlights the growing use of private investigators by local and public authorities, particularly the number of times they are used without RIPA authorisation. The law in the UK, particularly the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, is broadly drawn to allow evidence to be introduced in court that in other jurisdictions would not be deemed admissible. Contrasted with the fruit of the poisonous

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Online privacy

Woolwich and Communications Data

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Big Brother Watch Posted in CCDP, Civil Liberties, Communications Data Bill, Online privacy, Privacy, Surveillance | Leave a comment

commons day

Deputy Director Emma Carr has contributed this piece to Index on Censorship’s website.

John Reid and others’ attempt to make a political argument about “essential” legislation just hours after the brutal murder in Woolwich this week was remarkable, given how little was known at the time and the fact the victim’s family had not even been informed of his death.

Yes, it is right to examine how our security services could have been aided to prevent the horrific scenes we saw in Woolwich this week, but to jump to conclusions and use the politics of fear to promote an agenda before the any detail is available is simply wrong.

Indeed, as the facts have begun to emerge, it seems the answer may look very different to the draft Communications Data bill.

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What’s in an IP address?

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Big Brother Watch Posted in CCDP, Civil Liberties, Online privacy, Privacy, Surveillance, Technology | 6 Comments

943716_10153007365440107_483278094_nWhile the Communications Data Bill has scrapped, the one issue that remains live is the ‘resolution of IP addresses’ – particularly where mobile phone operators may have millions of customers using just a few hundred IP addresses. Deputy Director Emma Carr appeared on the Daily Politics yesterday to discuss the issue.

An IP address is (put simply) the address you access the internet through (although ways of masking this are nothing new nor particularly technically challenging). We think it reasonable that the issue is investigated so that where the police have an IP address from a service provider, they are able to trace that back to the person using the service. It may be possible to address this through small, technical changes to existing legislation, rather than a new Bill. Indeed, the draft Communications Data Bill went far, far beyond being a focused attempt to solve this problem.

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Experts say drop web snooping plans

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Big Brother Watch Posted in CCDP, Civil Liberties, Communications Data Bill, Internet freedom, Online privacy | 6 Comments

Today’s Times newspaper leads with an important development on the Communications Data Bill.

A group of ten leading academics and computer science experts have added their voices to the growing chorus of objection over the bill, far beyond the scope of merely tinkering with the drafted legislation.

This follows the news that the Home Office faces legal action as it tries to keep secret a key part of the snooping plan, the so-called ‘request filter’ – or as we call it, the search engine for our web activity.

The full text of the damning letter is below in full.

 

Dear Prime Minister,
One year ago, we learned that the Home Secretary intended to resurrect plans to monitor
every British person’s Internet activity. One year on, the plans remain as naïve and
technically dangerous as when they were floated by the last Government.
Parliament does not have a good track record in legislating for the Internet. The most recent
foray, the Digital Economy Act, has proven both unworkable and unhelpful, while more
feasible alternatives were ignored and taxpayers’ money was poured into a technically inept
political totem.

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Communications data, North Korea style

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Big Brother Watch Posted in CCDP, Communications Data Bill, International, Internet freedom, Online privacy, Privacy, Surveillance, Technology | 9 Comments

KJUmemeOne of the Prime Minister’s closest advisors has warned that the Home Office’s Communications Data plans to monitor email and web use could be “disastrous” and compared it to North Korea.

As reported by the Telegraph, Ben Hammersley, a Number 10 adviser to the Tech City project, the told magazine Tank:

“As a society, it would be stupid to build the infrastructure that could be used to oppress us. It just never works out well, because even if you’re using it for good stuff now, the fact that we don’t know who is going to be in charge in ten years’ time means that we shouldn’t give them free toys to play with.”

This follows remarks he made last year, when Mr Hammersley said the plans were ‘hilarious’ because of their technical naivety:

“The idea that the internet is like the postal service or like the copper line phone network in that it can be monitored in such a way is hilarious, because it can’t be technologically speaking, unless you become North Korea. Unless you become massively draconian you can’t either monitor propery or censor completely the internet.”

We previously highlighted the number of public organisations given access to the data – covering who you email, which websites you browse and the social media messages you send – is inevitably going to increase, with more than 30 already asking for the data before the bill has even been presented to parliament. This ‘function creep’ was also identified by Hammersley, who warned :

“I don’t trust future governments. The successors of the politicians who put this in place might not be trustworthy.

 

The social media shaped hole in surveillance law

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Emma Carr Posted in Online privacy, Police, Privacy, RIPA, Social Networking, Surveillance, Technology | 2 Comments

facebook_logo-300x99Over the last decade there has been an increasing change in the nature of surveillance – particularly the ability to search online, through social networks and through semi-public sources of information, reinforcing the need for the law to be reformed to protect the public from unwarranted surveillance.

What needs to be made very clear is that just because information is on the internet, it does not necessarily follow that the police should collect and analyse it. It is essential that it the gathering of information is proportionate, necessary, balanced against the need of police to do their job, allows for a free and open internet and meets the public’s expectations of privacy.

Our recent report on the use of private investigators by public authorities highlighted how the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) is in fundamental need of reform to protect against unauthorised surveillance; whether that be acquiring data through social media websites or the use of private investigators undertaking surveillance without appropriate supervision and authorisation. As the Joint Committee on the draft Communications  Data Bill Warned, the “language of RIPA is out of date and should not be used as the basis on new legislation.”

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Who’s snooping on your relationship status?

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Big Brother Watch Posted in Councils, Online privacy, Surveillance | 9 Comments

ITteamNext time you change your Facebook relationship status, think twice about what your local council might think.

As Tony Bell found, saying he was ‘married’ led to his local council deciding he was no longer entitled to his single person council tax discount – despite the ‘marriage’ being a joke to wind up colleagues.

We’ve warned before that the law is badly lacking when it comes to this kind of snooping and this case highlights why it’s a problem that’s only going to get worse.

If the council had sent someone out to see what was going on, they would have to seek a magistrates approval for surveillance under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Yet doing it online appears to fall totally outside these rules.

This weekend we’ll be publishing details of public authorities using private investigators, and it is clear this is not an isolated case.

Study links Facebook ‘likes’ with personality traits

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Emma Carr Posted in Online privacy, Privacy, Social Networking, Technology | 2 Comments

facebook_logo-300x99Facebook’s ‘likes’ could reveal the sexuality, political leanings and even your intelligence with an accuracy of between 65-95%. The study, created by Cambridge University, should will ring alarm bells for anyone who thinks that privacy settings are the solution to protecting information online.

The study, which used 58,000 volunteers, looked at Facebook “likes” and demographic information alongside provided psychometric testing results which are able to reveal personality traits.

The information was then fed into an algorithm which proved to be 88% accurate for determining male sexuality, 95% accurate in distinguishing African-American from Caucasian-American and 85% for differentiating Republican from Democrat. Christians and Muslims were correctly classified in 82% of cases and relationship status and substance abuse was predicted with an accuracy between 65% and 73%. Bizarrely, some strong but random links were found, such as Curly Fries with high IQ.

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Public back privacy law action on Google

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Big Brother Watch Posted in Data Protection, Europe, Information Commissioner, Online privacy, Privacy, Research and reports, Technology | Leave a comment

2226178289_a6d36a48dd_oNew research published today by Big Brother Watch/ComRes finds that the majority of the British public are concerned about their online privacy (68%) with nearly a quarter (22%) saying that they are very concerned.

People are more likely to say that consumers are being harmed by big companies gathering large amounts of their personal data for internal use (46%) than they are to say that this enhances consumer experiences (18%).

As European data protection regulators prepare to take action against Google one year on from its revised privacy policy coming into force, more than 7 in 10 (71%) of the British public say that privacy and data regulators were right to investigate Google’s privacy policy and how it allows Google to collect and combine data on consumers.

A clear majority (66%) of the British public say that national regulators should be doing more to force Google to comply with existing European Directives on privacy and the protection of personal data

The message from consumers is clear – regulators were right to investigate Google’s new privacy policy and now they need to do more to force the company to comply with the law.

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Consumers should be in charge of their data

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Big Brother Watch Posted in Data Protection, Online privacy, Technology | 12 Comments

4249731778_c071fcb365_oThe latest Google privacy debacle comes courtesy of Dan Nolan, an Australian app-developer,who has found he’s being sent personal information – without users ever giving permission for him to have it.

Dan spotted the issue when he logged into his ‘merchant’ section of his Google Play account and saw how for every customer who bought the app on Google play, he knew exactly who. “If you bought the app on Google Play (even if you cancelled the order) I have your email address, your suburb, and in many instances your full name.”

This is a relatively simple situation. You give your personal information to the Google App store, and Google – without explicitly asking you – hands it over to the developer of the app.  There’s no explicit notification, no request to transmit the data.

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Heroic assumptions from the Home Office

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Big Brother Watch Posted in CCDP, Civil Liberties, Communications Data Bill, Data Protection, Databases, Information Commissioner, Internet freedom, Online privacy, Social Networking, Surveillance, Technology | 7 Comments

This week saw the publication of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s report into the Draft Communications Data Bill. servers

While the report only looks at the way the intelligence and security agencies use communications data, and not the police, it offers further insights into the issue.

In the accompanying press statement, the Committee highlighted its scepticsm, saying: “…we consider that the Government needs to give more details on its proposals if the public and Parliament are to be convinced of the necessity of the Bill.”

The report itself contained some new insights into the legislation that would require details of of everyone’s emails, web use and social media messages to be recorded.

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