Campaigns
Stop Data Discrimination
The government wants to make it easier for companies and authorities to use your data against you.
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Resist Pre-Crime
Data and content is being weaponised to criminalise people without cause.
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Migrant Digital Justice
The Migrant Digital Justice programme empowers the migrants’ rights sector to challenge technologies used in immigration controls.
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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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Digital Rights Manifesto
We asked all candidates in the General Election to protect digital rights in the new Parliament.
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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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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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Councils against data discrimination
Council’s should use technology to support justice, rights and freedoms.
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Online Safety Bill Policy Hub
The Online Safety Act Policy Hub is a place to find out more about the issues affecting end-to-end encryption and freedom of expression online.
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Don’t Scan Me!
The Online Safety Act’s spy clause outsources surveillance to messaging apps.
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Stop Data Discrimination
The government wants to make it easier for companies and authorities to use your data against you.
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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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Court Rules UK Mass Surveillance Programme Unlawful
In 2013, following Edward Snowden’s disclosure of information about major national mass surveillance programmes, the Open Rights Group teamed up with Privacy International, English PEN, and Dr Constanze Kurz, a German computer scientist, to mount a legal challenge against the UK Government’s mass surveillance of the internet.
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Stop Stalker Ads
Your personal data is being auctioned off to online advertisers through AdTech systems, putting profits over privacy.
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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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Who do they think you are?
Political parties are profiling voters across the UK, using personal data purchased from the same people who give you a credit score to try and guess information about your religious and political beliefs, family life and social status.
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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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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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Check if your website is being blocked by filters
Our Blocked project aims to improve transparency about web blocking filters used by mobile phone companies and Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
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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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“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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Protecting digital rights in Scotland
Open Rights Group (ORG) runs campaigns focused on the unique digital rights challenges and opportunities in Scotland.
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Digital censorship averted as UK shelves Copyright Directive
Nearly a year after passage of the EU Copyright Directive, which opened the door to automated upload filters that damage free speech, the UK Government decided not to implement it.
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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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Migrant Digital Justice
The Migrant Digital Justice programme empowers the migrants’ rights sector to challenge technologies used in immigration.
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Data and Democracy
ORG seeks to prevent digital technologies from eroding public trust in the democratic process.
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Victory on Supreme Court web blocking judgement
Open Rights Group intervened in a legal challenge in which French jeweller Cartier sought court injunctions ordering ISPs to block websites which sell counterfeit Cartier products.
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Court of Appeal rules surveillance data should be restricted
In January 2018, the Court of Appeal delivered judgment in a case regarding the Government’s “Snooper’s Charter” provisions, found in the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014, and in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.
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ORG Scotland Launched
Our members told us there were specific Scottish concerns over digital rights that we couldn’t address properly from London.
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Winning the right to parody
July 2014
Reform of outdated copyright laws has been a major campaign focus for ORG from day one.
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Exposing online censorship
With the Blocked project we did groundbreaking research on the impact of web filters.
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Announcing the Department of Dirty
With a professional comedy video highlighting what happens when you just want to look for classic Spotted Dick, we raised awareness of the problems caused by filtering the Internet in the UK.
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Winning Human Rights Campaigner of the Year
In 2012, our succesful campaigning against the Snoopers’ Charter was recognised when we won the Liberty award for Human Rights Campaigner of the Year, jointly awarded with 38 Degrees.
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Victory against ACTA!
April 2012
ACTA was an international treaty which would have imposed extraordinary constraints on fundamental values such as free speech and the right to privacy.
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Challenging the Digital Economy Act
From 2010 – 2011 we fought against a law which proposed disconnecting whole households from the Internet on the basis of allegations of copyright infringement.
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Changing the law on tracking
In 2008 BT, Virgin and TalkTalk signed up to a new technology called Phorm, tracking users’ online habits to target them with ads.
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Creating the first ORGCon
In 2010 we launched our national digital rights conference, ORGCon, attracting over 400 people.
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Exterma-knit: Defending creativity
May 2008 – July 2008
ORG spearheaded resistance in the media, when BBC lawyers tried to shut down a knitting blogger who shared her Doctor Who cuddly Daleks and Ood designs on her site.
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Preventing online voting fraud
Concerned about the risk of fraud in electronic voting, one of our early campaigns was deploying volunteer teams of technical experts in 2007 and 2008 to produce analyses of the e-voting systems used in both trial and live elections.
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