Digital Privacy
Blog
23 Dec 2024 By Pam Cowburn
ORG Review 2024
It’s been another busy year for digital rights, with the added excitement of an earlier than expected General Election!
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20 November, 2024
Publication
e-Visas Factsheet
The Problem
From 1 January 2025, people who have right to remain in the UK must have an e-Visas to apply for work, apply to use housing and other services, and to re-enter the UK.
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14 November, 2024
Publication
Briefing: Data Use and Access Bill
Executive Summary
The new Data (Use and Access) Bill drops several concerning aspects of the previous Data Protection and Digital Information Bill.
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14 November, 2024
Publication
ICO Alternative Annual Report 2023-24
In this report the Open Rights Group offers our perspective on the Information Commissioner’s Office’s (ICO) 2023-24 Annual report, and recently published data on the enforcement action it has taken (or not) over the most recent financial year.
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Blog
08 Oct 2024 By Mariano delli Santi
The ICO is leaving an AI enforcement gap in the UK
In response to our formal complaint to the ICO against Meta’s use of personal data to train Artificial Intelligence models without consent, the ICO has invited Open Rights Group (ORG) to a meeting to discuss our concerns.
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Blog
18 Sep 2024 By Jim Killock
e-Visas: The Next Digital Windrush Scandal
Our report, “Hostile and Broken” released today, explains why e-Visas risk creating tens or hundreds of thousands of errors, with people potentially turned down for jobs, or unable to enter the country, as the result of electronic failures of the new online, real time re-checking inherent in the UK e-Visa scheme.
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17 September, 2024
Publication
e-Visas: Hostile and Broken
The e-Visa will be used to demonstrate someone’s ability to enter the UK, to prove their right to work and to access banking, mortgages and secure housing rental agreements.
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03 September, 2024
Publication
Stop the e-Visa scheme and prevent a digital Windrush scandal
What is the e-Visa scheme?
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Campaign
Stop the e-Visa scheme
Plans to digitalise migrants’ proof of residence could lead to a digital Windrush scandal where people with the right to be in the UK won’t be able to prove it.
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Blog
01 Aug 2024 By Mariano delli Santi
Light and Shadow of the Digital Information and Smart Data Bill
In what could be a new, welcomed development, Labour appear to have decided to narrow the scope of the data protection reform by … taking away the data protection parts.
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Blog
26 Jul 2024 By Mariano delli Santi
AI Regulation: Will Labour Promote Growth and Protect Rights?
In the King’s Speech, Labour committed to binding regulation on “the handful of companies developing the most powerful AI models” to ensure the safe developments of these technologies.
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Blog
16 Jul 2024 By Mariano delli Santi
Meta Wants to Make Us its AI Guinea Pigs
Meta, the company that runs Facebook and Instagram, has announced plans to repurpose most of the personal data that they ever collected about you, to train their “artificial intelligence (AI) technologies” — without, of course, asking your permission to do so.
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15 July, 2024
Publication
Complaint to the ICO about Meta
Open Rights Group has submitted a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the UK about Meta’s plans to take users’ information to “develop and improve AI”.
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Blog
08 May 2024 By Mariano delli Santi
Smart meter data: the Government’s at it again
Back in October 2022, ORG exposed Government plans to snoop on UK residents’ smart meters and energy consumption data.
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17 April, 2024
Publication
ORG Response to the ICO “consent or pay” consultation
Open Rights Group welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Information Commissioner’s Office consultation on the “consent or pay” model, which is or could be relied upon for processing personal data on the basis of consent.
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Blog
23 Apr 2024 By Sara Alsherif
Why Migrants Need Digital Sanctuary
When individuals migrate, their data migrates with them.
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Blog
20 Mar 2024 By Mariano delli Santi
The ICO Must Toughen Up
As the House of Lords finally begins scrutiny of the UK data protection reform, Open Rights Group urges peers to support amendments that would strengthen the independence and effectiveness of the UK data protection authority, and bolster the public’s right of seeking a remedy against an infringement of their rights.
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Blog
19 Mar 2024 By Pam Cowburn
The Post Office Scandal and Data Protection
The Post Office scandal, which saw hundreds of subpostmasters wrongly convicted of fraud, is one of the UK’s biggest miscarriages of justice.
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18 March, 2024
Publication
Briefing: The ICO Isn’t Working and How Parliament Can Fix It
Parliamentary briefing on amendments to the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill for the House of Lords Committee Stage, March 2024.
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12 March, 2024
Publication
The impact of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill on data use for political purposes
In this briefing, we explain how the proposed changes to the UK data protection framework that would be introduced by the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill would weaken legal safeguards around the use of personal data for political purposes.
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Blog
07 Mar 2024 By Sara Alsherif
Government does the bare minimum to update the Immigration Exemption
ORG and the3million took the Government to court several times before the Government accepted that the Immigration Exemption was unlawful.
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28 February, 2024
Publication
Pervasive identity surveillance for marketing purposes
A technical report on personal data processing for LiveRamp’s “RampID” identity graph system based on an analysis of software documentation with a focus on Europe.
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Blog
31 Jan 2024 By Jim Killock
Are British Data Rights falling behind our EU neighbours?
With the roll-out of iOS 17.
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Blog
13 Dec 2023 By Alexander Dolphin
Government powers overdrawn
Whether you are a pensioner or a parent, unemployed or living with a disability, you may be one of the millions of people who receive benefits from the State.
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Campaign
Hands Off Our Data
Your data can get used against you and attacks on your rights mean you’ll have less ability to do anything about it.
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Blog
28 Jul 2023 By Mariano delli Santi
The CPTPP: trading away your privacy rights
The Government have recently announced the UK accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
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Campaign
End Pre-Crime
Data and content is being weaponised to criminalise people without cause fuelled by facial recognition technology, AI and surveillance.
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25 May, 2023
Publication
Data privacy and the ICO during a crisis: Lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic
A new report exposes failures by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in protecting the public privacy and data rights during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Campaign
Councils against data discrimination
Council’s should use technology to support justice, rights and freedoms.
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Blog
14 Dec 2022 By Mariano delli Santi
Data Grab Bill from an EU perspective
A delegation from the European Parliament visited London and left with some rather scathing opinions about the UK data protection reform, but UK Ministers have been denying that there is any issue with their proposals.
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Campaign
Stop Data Discrimination
The government wants to make it easier for companies and authorities to use your data against you.
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Campaign
The Global Privacy Race to the Bottom
UK privacy rights are getting trampled in the Government’s rush to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
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Campaign
Stop Stalker Ads
Your personal data is being auctioned off to online advertisers through AdTech systems, putting profits over privacy.
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Campaign
Demand privacy protections for Test & Trace
The Government’s Test and Trace Programme risks the privacy rights of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of individuals in the UK whose personal data has been or will be processed through the Programme.
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Campaign
Make data protection law work for everyone
Currently only citizens – who rarely have the expertise, ability or time – are able to initiate complaints when data law is broken.
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Campaign
NHSX scraps centralised model for Covid-19 app
In a huge win for digital privacy, in June 2020 the UK Government scrapped plans to use a centralised model for its Covid-19 tracker app, opting for the decentralised model long advocated by Open Rights Group (ORG).
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Campaign
The Government assault on privacy
From expanded Police data powers to undermining the UK’s privacy regulator, the Government is rolling out a multifaceted attack on our hard won rights to privacy.
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Campaign
“Immigration exemption” ruled unlawful under GDPR
When the “immigration exemption” became law as part of the 2018 Data Protection Act, it threatened the data rights of all UK residents, including British citizens.
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Campaign
Government drops risky age verification plan
Open Rights Group (ORG) has been warning about major privacy risks in plans for age checks on adult websites since they were proposed in the Digital Economy Act 2017.
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Campaign
Migrant Digital Justice
The Migrant Digital Justice programme empowers the migrants’ rights sector to challenge technologies used in immigration.
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23 November, 2018
Publication
Response to consultation on a new Free Trade Agreement with the United States
We have general concerns about the process of trade policy, shared with much of civil society.
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Blog
21 Jun 2017 By Jim Killock
Queen’s speech 2017 – threats to privacy and free speech
There are references to a review of Counter-terrorism and a Commision for Countering Extremism which will include Internet-related policies.
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Blog
04 Jun 2017 By Jim Killock
The London Attacks
It is disappointing that in the aftermath of this attack, the Government’s response appears to focus on the regulation of the Internet and encryption.
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Blog
01 May 2017 By Jim Killock
Automated censorship is not the answer to extremism
Today’s report by the Home Affairs Select Committee brands social media companies as behaving irresponsibly in failing to remove extremist material.
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Blog
08 Feb 2017 By Jim Killock
Just how much censorship will the DEBill lead to?
Officials wrote to the New Statesman yesterday to complain about Myles Jackman’s characterisation of the Digital Economy Bill as leading to an attempt to classify everything on the Internet.
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Blog
02 Nov 2016 By Jim Killock
Facebook is right to sink Admiral’s app
Late yesterday, on the eve before Admiral tried to launch Firstcarquote, their application’s permission to use Facebook data was revoked by the social media site.
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Blog
19 Oct 2016 By Jim Killock
Fig leafs for privacy in Age Verification
Yesterday we published a blog detailing the lack of privacy safeguards for Age Verification systems mandated in the Digital Economy Bill.
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Blog
18 Oct 2016 By Jim Killock
A database of the UK’s porn habits. What could possibly go wrong?
To this end the Digital Economy Bill creates a regulator that will seek to ensure that adult content websites will verify the age of users, or face monetary penalties, or in the case of overseas sites, ask payment providers such as VISA to refuse to process UK payments for non-compliant providers.
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Blog
28 Jan 2016 By Jason Kitcat
E-voting won’t solve the problem of voter apathy
As the old English proverb has it “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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Blog
19 Jan 2016 By Jim Killock
Does the government want to break encryption or not?
The government opens up by stating:
This Government recognises the importance of encryption, which helps keep people’s personal data and intellectual property safe from theft by cyber means.
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Blog
26 Feb 2015 By Jim Killock
GCHQ is damaging businesses and the digital economy – we need your help
But it is the Internet economy that is at risk, just as much as our civil liberties.
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Blog
20 Jan 2015 By Richard King
Default censorship is wrong and unfair to Sky’s customers
Sky Broadband have announced they will force web-filters on all customers, starting this week, unless the account-holder opts out.
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Blog
13 Jan 2015 By Jim Killock
What does David Cameron want?
On Monday, David Cameron declared war on encryption as the latest knee-jerk reaction to the atrocities committed in Paris against Charlie Hebdo journalists.
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Blog
06 Jul 2014 By Jim Killock
What Google isn’t doing with requests for search redaction
A search for Stan o’Neal brings up Robert Peston’s article on the first page.
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Blog
02 Jul 2014 By Pam Cowburn
ORG’s Blocked project finds almost 1 in 5 sites are blocked by filters
Today, Open Rights Group relaunched www.
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Blog
14 Apr 2014 By Richard King
Making progress on monitoring censorship
Since the start of the year ORG’s community of technical volunteers have been turning blocked.
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Blog
07 Apr 2014 By Ruth Coustick-Deal
We’re making web censorship more transparent – thanks to you!
The generosity of our supporters raised more than £6500 to support our campaign to end the imposition of web censorship in the UK.
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Blog
10 Mar 2014 By Ruth Coustick-Deal
Support ORG’s Censorship Monitoring Project
ORG are building tools to monitor the effects of default filtering in the UK
Can you join us now to help keep this project going?
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Blog
23 Jan 2014 By Peter Bradwell
What’s happening to your medical records and how you can opt out
Where your records will be stored, the people deciding who has access to them, the reasons people can access them – all of these things are affected by what’s happening.
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Blog
19 Dec 2013 By Peter Bradwell
Ten recommendations to ISPs for dealing with over-blocking
We started looking closely at internet filtering by mobile networks a couple of years ago.
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Blog
13 Dec 2013 By Peter Bradwell
BT answers our questions about parental controls
Today BT launched their new Parental Controls service, the latest ISP to roll out network level filters following the Government’s push this summer.
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Blog
11 Dec 2013 By Peter Bradwell
Important opinion about data retention due tomorrow
Update: The opinion has now been published, with the Advocate General arguing that the Directive breaches the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
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Blog
15 Nov 2013 By Peter Bradwell
Sky’s reply to ORG on default internet filters
Sky are the first Internet Service Provider to send us answers to all of our questions about their default filtering.
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Blog
09 Nov 2013 By Jim Killock
Now talking is treachery
The security services in Parliament claimed that the Guardian’s stories have led directly to discussions among terrorists to improve their information security.
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08 November, 2013
Publication
Response to Nominet domain registration policy review
Contact: Peter Bradwell, peter@openrightsgroup.org
1.
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30 October, 2013
Publication
Mass surveillance oversight debate
Download PDF version
Civil Society Concerns about UK Surveillance
Secret mass surveillance is a threat to democracy and the rule of law.
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Blog
06 Sep 2013 By Jim Killock
The security services are stripping us of basic Internet security
Their reports of NSA and GCHQ attacks on fundamental Internet security really matter.
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Blog
01 Aug 2013 By Jim Killock
Diane Abbott responds on web forum blocking
On a cycling forum, members who are rightly worried that their forum may be blocked by default filters, Skydancer posted a response he was given by Diane Abbott:
I do not believe that the arrangements to protect children from hard core porn online will affect a forum to discuss cycling!
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Blog
31 Jul 2013 By Jim Killock
Government wants default blocking to hit small ISPs
Announced without fanfare, this is the result of several years work on a Communications Bill, now parked, it seems.
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Blog
27 Jul 2013 By Jim Killock
Who exactly is responsible for ‘nudge censorship’?
In essence, DCMS’s Maria Miller, Claire Perry and David Cameron’s staff have hijacked agreed cabinet policy, pushed for something very different and persuaded ISPs that they should implement significantly worse policies than originally envisaged.
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Blog
23 Jul 2013 By Jim Killock
ISPs need to explain their filtering systems
We are asking ISPs to explain how their systems will work, and to what extent David Cameron has represented or misrepresented their intentions.
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Blog
22 Jul 2013 By Jim Killock
David Cameron is issuing bad advice to parents
Last week, we published a list of questions about the impacts of filtering technologies, on privacy, Internet applications and user awareness of the technology.
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Blog
19 Jul 2013 By Jim Killock
ORG asks court for web blocking documents
A few weeks ago, ORG published the website 451unavailable.
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Blog
17 Jun 2013 By Jim Killock
Jargon File blocked by O2, Youtube by Orange
Report your blocks here.
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Blog
13 Jun 2013 By Jim Killock
Website filtering problems are a ‘load of cock’
The motion laid down by Labour says:
That this House deplores the growth in child abuse images online; deeply regrets that up to one and a half million people have seen such images; notes with alarm the lack of resources available to the police to tackle this problem; further notes the correlation between viewing such images and further child abuse; notes with concern the Government’s failure to implement the recommendations of the Bailey Review and the Independent Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection on ensuring children’s safe access to the internet; and calls on the Government to set a timetable for the introduction of safe search as a default, effective age verification and splash page warnings and to bring forward legislative proposals to ensure these changes are speedily implemented.
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Blog
07 Jun 2013 By Peter Bradwell
PRISM: The FISAAA smoking gun
UPDATED: see presentation by Caspar Bowden below.
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Blog
31 May 2013 By Peter Bradwell
What mobile internet filtering tells us about porn blocks
There’s been plenty of coverage today of calls to do more to block access to pornography, and specifically pornography on the Internet.
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Blog
26 Apr 2013 By Claudia Mateus
Digital Surveillance video
The Digital Surveillance report – to be launched at a public event on Monday – gives a history of surveillance policy, looks at the current state of the law, examines why technology poses a problem and offers alternative, more targeted and more accountable approaches.
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Blog
21 Mar 2013 By Jim Killock
Meeting Hacked Off
Simon Phipps’ article and comments from Cory Doctorow and Alec Muffett prompted the invite from Evan Harris and Hacked Off.
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Blog
20 Dec 2012 By Peter Bradwell
Confusion over parental Internet controls
Five days ago, the Department for Education announced a very reasonable approach to child protection online.
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18 December, 2012
Publication
Response to the DfE National Pupil Database consultation
Context
In late 2012 the Department for Education launched a consultation looking at who is able to access and use the information held in the National Pupil Database.
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Blog
17 Dec 2012 By Peter Bradwell
Another church blocked by mobile networks
About this time last year we wrote about a church that had been blocked by O2’s mobile Internet filters.
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Blog
12 Dec 2012 By Peter Bradwell
How the Home Office let their Minister down
A week ago the Home Secretary said that anybody opposed to the draft Communications Data Bill was ‘putting politics before lives’.
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Blog
30 Nov 2012 By Jim Killock
Data protection debate at MoJ
Yesterday I attended the first of the Department of Justice’s Advisory panel meetings on the new Data Protection regulation laws being proposed at the EU.
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Blog
17 Nov 2012 By Jim Killock
Victory in sight: government signals climb down from “default” filtering?
According to reports this Saturday in the Daily Mail and Telegraph, David Cameron will be asking ISPs to ask customers if they have children, and if so, help them install filtering technology.
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Blog
01 Nov 2012 By Peter Bradwell
Getting the facts straight in the parental controls debate
Yesterday there was a Westminster Hall debate about the responsibilities of Internet companies.
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24 September, 2012
Publication
Response to DfE consultation on parental controls
September 2012.
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Blog
18 Jul 2012 By Jim Killock
Snooper’s Charter: a Bill without a proposal
Yesterday’s hearings on the proposed Communications Data Bill provided for some hilarity, as Professor Glees laid into the “civil liberties lobby” and made quite outrageous claims for the need for increased surveillance to reduce criminality.
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Blog
13 Jun 2012 By Peter Bradwell
Update on reported BT block of Black Triangle campaign website
Earlier this week TechWeekly reported the campaign group Black Triangle had complained that their site was being blocked by BT.
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Blog
28 May 2012 By Peter Bradwell
Reporting ‘over-blocking’ to mobile operators
Since we published our report ‘Mobile Internet censorship: what’s happening and what to do about it‘, jointly with LSE Media Policy project, a number of people have been in touch with us asking what to do if they discover their site is blocked incorrectly by mobile networks’ child protection filters.
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Blog
18 May 2012 By Peter Bradwell
New reports of overblocking on mobile networks
Since we launched our new research about Mobile Internet censorship on Monday, there’s been a rise in the number of reports to our website Blocked.
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14 May, 2012
Publication
Mobile Internet censorship: what’s happening and what we can do about it
This report is about mobile Internet censorship.
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Blog
04 May 2012 By Peter Bradwell
Peace advocates’ website is blocked as porn on UK mobile networks
The past few days have seen a lot of attention given to the neo Mary Whitehouse campaign for default censorship.
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Blog
01 May 2012 By Jim Killock
What they want is control
If you want to know how bad things are getting, look no further than the confused conversation on Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning.
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Blog
15 Feb 2012 By Alessandra Cappuccini and Gemma Craggs
Orange UK blocking La Quadrature du Net
Through reports to the blocked.
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Blog
31 Jan 2012 By Jim Killock
Protecting Internet users from tracking and profiling
For three days last week, a group of technicians and lawyers at W3C – the World Wide Web Consortium, headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee – has debated how to protect user privacy from ‘third party’ tracking websites.
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Blog
23 Jan 2012 By Peter Bradwell
UK Mobile operators censor privacy tool ‘Tor’
Open Rights Group and Tor have established that UK mobile networks such as Vodafone, O2 and 3 are filtering UK users’ access to Tor’s primary website (meaning the HTTP version of the Tor Project website, rather than connections to the Tor network) on pre-paid contractless accounts.
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Blog
01 Nov 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Joint letter to the Foreign Secretary
To coincide with the start of the London Conference on Cyberspace, eleven organisations and experts on freedom of expression and privacy online have today written to the Foreign Secretary stating that Britain’s desire to promote these ideals internationally is being hampered by domestic policy.
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Blog
11 Oct 2011 By Jim Killock
ACTION: Repeal Web Censorship!
Fantastic news: Julian Huppert MP has tabled amendments to the Freedom Bill to repeal the website blocking clauses of the Digital Economy Act.
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