Blog
Free expression online
04 Jul 2025 By Open Rights Group
Banning Palestine Action: How the UK Government is Silencing Dissent
The proscription of Palestine Action will come into effect on Saturday unless the High Court issues a temporary block on the order today.
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Digital Privacy
18 Jun 2025 By Alberico Ricci
Automated Hiring and Firing: How the Data Act will harm gig workers
The Data Use and Access (DUA) Act, which was finally passed last week, could particularly impact the estimated 4.
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Digital Privacy
13 May 2025 By Mariano delli Santi
Data Bill: First They Came for Trans People
On May 12, the Data (Use and Access) Bill, also known as the UK data protection reform, came back to the House of Lords for what was supposed to be its final stage.
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Mass Surveillance
01 May 2025 By Sara Chitseko
Why ‘Predictive’ Policing Must be Banned
The UK Government is trying to use algorithms to predict which people are most likely to become killers using sensetive personal data of hundreds of thousands of people.
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Digital Privacy
30 Apr 2025 By James Baker
What Do Political Parties Really Know About You?
This Thursday (1 May 2025), voters will go to the polls in 1,641 council seats across 24 local authorities.
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Free expression online
04 Mar 2025 By Jim Killock
Save our Sites: Deadline 17 March
Incredible as it may seem, thanks to the Online Safety Act, dozens of harmless, safe, small websites are closing down by 17 March, rather than face threats of fines that could lose their operators their homes.
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Mass Surveillance
03 Mar 2025 By Alexander Dolphin
Queercryption: Safety in Numbers
We deserve to live free from persecution.
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Mass Surveillance
24 Feb 2025 By Alexander Dolphin
The Case for Encryption
Spying on private messages has long been on the security services’ wish list.
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Mass Surveillance
13 Feb 2025 By Sara Chitseko
Prevent Duty: Redefining terrorism in the wake of the Southport attacks
On 23 January 2025, 18 year old Axel Rudakubana was sentenced to a minimum of 52 years in prison for the horrific murder of three young girls and the attempted murder of eight other children, as well as two adults who tried to save them.
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Free expression online
09 Jan 2025 By James Baker
Musk and Zuck: Engineering Free Speech
Under the guise of protecting free speech, an alarming alignment between government power and Big Tech’s corporate power is unfolding.
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Digital Privacy
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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Free expression online
18 Nov 2024 By Jim Killock
The Twitter Xodus: Time to stay or time to go
“We’re here, because we’re here.
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Digital Privacy
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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Digital Privacy
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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Digital Privacy
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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Digital Privacy
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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Data and Democracy
17 Jul 2024 By Mariano delli Santi
King’s Speech Response
ORG’s analysis and response to the Labour Government’s legislative agenda.
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Digital Privacy
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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02 Jul 2024 By Jim Killock
What we learnt from the manifestos
For the General Election 2024, we extracted everything we could from the manifestos of each UK political party, to understand what their understanding of digital rights issues is, and what we might expect from a new government.
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Data and Democracy
18 Jun 2024 By Mariano delli Santi
No Data Protection, No Democracy
As the General Election approaches, political parties in the UK are clashing and competing in the attempt to win voters, leaving no stone unturned—including the use of digital technologies.
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Digital Privacy
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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Digital Privacy
23 Apr 2024 By Sara Alsherif
Why Migrants Need Digital Sanctuary
When individuals migrate, their data migrates with them.
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Data and Democracy
22 Apr 2024 By Mariano delli Santi
The DPDI Bill Threatens the Integrity of the UK General Election
In our latest briefing, Open Rights Group raises the alarm over changes in the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (DPDI Bill) that could open the floodgate for the abuse of data analytics and new technologies for electoral manipulation.
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Free expression online
17 Apr 2024 By Sara Chitseko
Extremism Redefined: Caught in a Mouth Trap
Last month, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove MP, announced a new and expanded definition of extremism as part of the Government’s Counter Terrorism Strategy.
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Mass Surveillance
08 Apr 2024 By Jim Killock
Home Office CCTV: free mass surveillance?
The Home Office has for several years run a programme to supply Mosques, temples and Synagogues with security equipment including CCTV cameras.
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05 Apr 2024 By Open Rights Group
Tribute to Ross Anderson
Professor Ross Anderson, who died on March 28, was a great friend and ally to Open Rights Group.
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Digital Privacy
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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Digital Privacy
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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Free expression online
07 Mar 2024 By Pam Cowburn
Donelan and the rise of government censorship
There are calls for the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Michelle Donelan to resign after she falsely accused two academics of promoting extremism.
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Digital Privacy
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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06 Mar 2024 By James Baker
Interview with Kate Stonehill, Director of Phantom Parrot
Kate Stonehill, Director of Phantom Parrot.
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05 Mar 2024 By Pam Cowburn
What Sunak’s speech means for digital rights
On Friday 1 March 2024, the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made a statement about extremism outside Downing Street.
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Free expression online
04 Mar 2024 By Abigail Burke
A dangerous precedent for global censorship
ORG responds to Ofcom’s Online Safety Act plans
Last week, Open Rights Group responded to Ofcom’s Illegal Harms consultation, the first of a series of consultations Ofcom will be holding on the development of its guidance for the Online Safety Act.
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21 Feb 2024 By Jim Killock
Advisory Council Nominees needed
Open Rights Group is looking for around 10 new members of our Advisory Council in 2024, to help advise us on policy at a time of major change.
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Mass Surveillance
12 Feb 2024 By Sara Chitseko
The case against police body-worn video cameras
A new investigation by the BBC has revealed a shocking incident in which Thames Valley Police officers made “sickening” comments about a woman, filmed semi-naked with police body-worn video cameras.
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Digital Privacy
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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29 Jan 2024 By James Baker
How a weaker data watchdog impacts you
We live in an information age when organisations rely on large amounts of personal data to make life-changing decisions about us.
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24 Dec 2023 By Alexander Dolphin
End of Year Review 2023
A round-up of the legal, policy and campaigning work of Open Rights Group during 2023.
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Digital Privacy
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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31 Oct 2023 By Open Rights Group
Black History Month 2023
As Black History Month draws to a close, we’d like to recognise some of the individuals, organisations and initiatives, who inspire us through their work challenging racism within tech, policing and our wider society.
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26 Oct 2023 By Open Rights Group
Digital Rights, Israel and Palestine
It has been over two weeks since the Hamas attacks and the start of the Israeli offensive on Gaza.
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05 Oct 2023 By Mariano delli Santi
UK DATA BRIDGE: A GLOBAL PRIVACY RACE TO THE BOTTOM
On October 12, the UK extension (Data Bridge) to the EU–US Transatlantic Data Privacy Framework (DPF) will come into force.
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Mass Surveillance
08 Sep 2023 By James Baker and Jim Killock
Omnishambles over encrypted messages continues
At the eleventh hour of the Online Safety Bill’s passage through Parliament, the Government has found itself claiming to have both conceded that it won’t do anything stupid regarding encrypted messages, and that it may well press ahead with dangerous technologies if it wants to.
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15 Aug 2023 By Sara Alsherif
Fines Hiked For Firms Employing Illegal Migrants
The recent announcement by Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick regarding the proposed rules to triple fines for businesses and landlords supposedly supporting illegal migrants has ignited significant concerns, calling for careful reconsideration, as their implications run deep and require immediate attention.
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01 Aug 2023 By Sophia Akram, Abby Burke, Jim Killock
What’s wrong with ULEZ? It’s not what you think
ULEZ – the Ultra Low Emmission Zone – has become a political football.
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Digital Privacy
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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25 Jul 2023 By Sophia Akram
South Wales Police state their case for using facial recognition
On 28 June, the parliamentary session’s final Senedd cross-party group (CPG) on digital rights and democracy, of which Open Rights Group (ORG) acts as secretariat, took place online with over 20 attendees tuning in to hear a follow-up to a previous group session on facial recognition technology.
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20 Jul 2023 By Dr Monica Horten
Disappointment as peers fail to protect privacy on encrypted chats
Watching last night’s debate in the House of Lords was a disappointing experience as peers failed to protect the privacy of the 40 million British people who use private chat service.
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18 Jul 2023 By Sara Alsherif
Migrant Rights Update – July 2023
Read our latest update on issues affecting migrants’ digital rights.
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11 Jul 2023 By Abigail Burke
Smart meter data collection: Government reverses course after ORG raises concerns
Last year, on 1 October 2022 the Government quietly announced that smart meter data would be collected in order to assess the bills reduction scheme following energy price hikes last year.
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19 Jun 2023 By Sara Alsherif
Compassion needed at the Home Office
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Refugee Week, and the theme is compassion, celebrating the resilience of refugees and asylum seekers.
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16 Jun 2023 By Alexander Dolphin
Putting Pride In Privacy
Coming out is the definitive queer right of passage.
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15 Jun 2023 By Jim Killock
Impunity pervades post-Johnson Government
Johnson’s lack of candour might look like a personal phenomenon, but it was something which pervaded his government.
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Mass Surveillance
06 Jun 2023 By Jim Killock
Snowden Revelations: Ten Years On
Ten years ago, the first revelations about US mass surveillance were published in the UK and USA.
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26 May 2023 By Jim Killock
Board nominations open
Open Rights Group is electing three Board members for a two year term, to help lead our governance and oversight at a time of major change.
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Mass Surveillance
25 May 2023 By Sophia Akram
George Floyd’s Murder, Three Years On: Insitutional Racism Hardwired in Police Tech
Three years ago today, rumblings of a global reckoning on racial injustice took place that led many people to reconsider their own experiences and roles when it came to anti-Blackness and racial discrimination.
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23 May 2023 By Sara Alsherif
Migrants’ Data Rights Under Attack
If you are a migrant in the UK, asylum seeker, refugee or working on this issue, you must read this carefully.
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Mass Surveillance
18 May 2023 By Sophia Akram
Don’t use Beyonce to normalise live facial recognition
Its deployment is nothing more than our demise from democracy.
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Free expression online
15 May 2023 By Dr Monica Horten
Small Boats and Silent Protest: Prior Restraint in the Online Safety Bill
Under new rules created by the Online Safety Bill, all illegal content must be removed from social media platforms.
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Free expression online
11 May 2023 By Pam Cowburn
Online Safety Act: A Danger to Democracy
The campaign group, Republic have called for an investigation into the arrest of eight of their members, including Chief Executive Graham Smith, ahead of the organisation’s planned protest of the King’s coronation.
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20 Apr 2023 By Open Rights Group
Introducing Sara Alsherif
Hello everyone,
My name is Sara Alsherif, and I am excited to introduce myself as the new Programme Manager for the Migrant Digital Justice Programme.
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Mass Surveillance
20 Mar 2023 By Sophia Akram
What’s wrong with ‘gang’ surveillance in the UK?
Just over one year ago, ten young Black men were charged with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to GBH in Greater Manchester.
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08 Mar 2023 By Abigail Burke
International Women’s Day: We must challenge discrimination women face across the digital landscape
This International Women’s Day, ORG is celebrating the critical contributions made by the women on our staff (and all women across the digital rights space) to making technology, and in turn the world, more equitable, diverse, and inclusive.
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07 Mar 2023 By Abigail Burke
The Data Grab Bill attacks our data rights
ORG sent an urgent open letter to Michelle Donelan MP, the Secretary of State for the new Department of Science, Innovation and Technology.
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Mass Surveillance
15 Feb 2023 By Sophia Akram
UK Facial Recognition – No Oversight, No Consent
On 3 February 2023, the Wales cross-party group on digital rights and democracy – for which Open Rights Group serves as the secretariat – held its fourth session on surveillance and facial recognition technology in the UK.
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14 Feb 2023 By Sophia Akram
Prevent: Shawcross Review fails to address data harms and rights
On 8 February, the long awaited report – the Independent Review of Prevent – conducted by the commissioner for public appointments William Shawcross, was published after much scepticism, delay and controversy, even from within the cabinet.
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12 Jan 2023 By Sophia Akram
Views Around the Table on the Online Safety Bill
On 27 September 2022, Open Rights Group (ORG) held a roundtable with civil society – from women’s rights advocacy groups to organisations representing over-surveilled communities – to discuss some of the most concerning aspects of the Online Safety Bill, currently at the report stage in the House of Commons.
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11 Jan 2023 By Dr Monica Horten
State enforcement of big tech terms
At the end of 2022, a widely publicised change to the Online Safety Bill took out the so-called “legal but harmful” clauses for adults.
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04 Jan 2023 By Sophia Akram
Data Sharing and Migrant Women Reporting Abuse
On 9 December 2022, The Wales Cross Party Group on Digital Rights and Democracy, of which Open Rights Group is the secretariat, held its second session, this time held on data sharing and migrant women reporting domestic abuse.
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28 Dec 2022 By James Baker
The ORG Review of 2022
2022 has been a tumultuous year for Digital Rights in the UK.
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Digital Privacy
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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Mass Surveillance
12 Dec 2022 By Dr Monica Horten
Online Safety Bill: Triple shield or triple surveillance?
Update on the Parliamentary amendments
The Online Safety Bill is back in Parliament.
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Mass Surveillance
09 Dec 2022 By James Baker
Continuing the campaign against the Online Safety Bill
This week the Online Safety Bill came back to Parliament.
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28 Nov 2022 By Abigail Burke
ICO fails to protect World Cup fans
Last week, several news outlets reported that Qatar’s World Cup apps pose serious privacy and security risks.
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Mass Surveillance
24 Nov 2022 By Dr Monica Horten
Global encryption coalition warns of Online Safety Bill dangers
70 organizations, cyber security experts, and elected officials sign open letter expressing dangers of Online Safety Bill
On 24 November, seventy civil society organizations, companies, elected officials, and cybersecurity experts, including Global Encryption Coalition members, published an open letter to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak highlighting their concerns with the threat that the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Bill poses to end-to-end encryption.
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17 Nov 2022 By Jim Killock
Twitter Crisis – What we need to do
The Twitter crisis threatens people in many diverse ways.
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03 Nov 2022 By Sophia Akram
Digital Trade and the EU – Post Brexit
On Friday, 21 October, the Wales Cross Party Group on Digital Rights, of which Open Rights Group (ORG) is the secretariat, held an online event discussing the EU and digital trade post-Brexit and in the wake of new legislation.
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02 Nov 2022 By Mariano delli Santi
Data Grab Bill: ORG meets EU Parliament
The UK data reform is gaining international attention: Members of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) of the European Parliament are visiting London from 2-4 November to meet with UK Government representatives, civil society and other interest groups.
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01 Nov 2022 By Jim Killock
Elon Musk exposes the truth
Nobody is happy with the private public square
Nobody is happy at Musk’s takeover of Twitter.
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28 Oct 2022 By Sahdya Darr
EDRi’s first Colour of Surveillance Europe Conference
In September, European Digital Rights (EDRi) held the first Colour of Surveillance Europe Conference in Amsterdam and it was such a privilege for me to be selected to attend both days of the conference.
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25 Oct 2022 By Dr Monica Horten
Net neutrality on the chopping block
Government Bill grants powers to axe Internet laws
Net neutrality and the Open Internet are under threat from a proposed new law that is now before Parliament.
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19 Oct 2022 By Mariano delli Santi
The Govt want to read your meter readings, and your mail could be next
The UK Government have announced that they will require energy suppliers to hand over meter readings of millions of UK residents to conduct “financial checks […] for assurance and the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences including fraud”, as well as to “inform future Government policy”.
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18 Oct 2022 By Abigail Burke
DATA PROTECTION U-TURN NEEDED
Government’s proposed changes to UK GDPR should be next to go
New chancellor Jeremy Hunt has begun to scrap part of the disastrous economic measures proposed in the mini-Budget in response to backlash from the markets, businesses and consumers.
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11 Oct 2022 By Dr Monica Horten
Molly Russell inquest and the online platforms debate
We would like to extend our sympathies to the family of Molly Russell and we trust they will be allowed the space to come to terms in private with the outcome of the inquest on their daughter’s death.
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Mass Surveillance
07 Oct 2022 By Sophia Akram
Young people criminalised for content
It’s a modern-day reality that pretty much anyone can go online today and write what they want with some form of audience available to them – whether that’s Facebook friends, Twitter followers or readers of a personal blog.
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04 Oct 2022 By Mariano delli Santi
UK Government failing on AI regulation
The UK Government have published their vision for “Establishing a pro-innovation approach to regulating AI”.
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29 Sep 2022 By Dr Monica Horten
Will the upload filter ban images of protest?
Recently, we saw how police threatened and in a couple of cases, arrested, anti-monarchy protesters, following the death of the late queen Elizabeth II.
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20 Sep 2022 By Al
Board Nominations Open
Open Rights Group is electing three Board members in 2022, to help lead our governance and oversight at a time of major change.
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05 Sep 2022 By Dr Monica Horten and Mariano delli Santi
Can our new Prime Minister be trusted with free speech and privacy?
As Liz Truss flies to Balmoral tomorrow to meet the Queen, who will ask her to form a government, what can we expect for our free speech and privacy rights?
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01 Sep 2022 By Dr Monica Horten
Could debate on immigration be suppressed?
A little bombshell, hidden deep within the gargantuan piece of legislation that is the Online Safety Bill, could have the effect of suppressing public debate around immigration.
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Mass Surveillance
04 Aug 2022 By Dr Monica Horten
The Online Safety Bill puts a spy in your pocket
The deployment of client-side scanning on private messaging systems was trailed in a research paper published by the technical directors of GCHQ and the National Cybersecurity Centre (NCSC).
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02 Aug 2022 By Sahdya Darr
Migrant Digital Justice Toolkit
How-to-fight data discrimination – launching a new toolkit for the migrants’ rights sector
The Migrant Digital Justice Programme (MDJP) at ORG is proud to launch our Migrant Digital Justice Toolkit.
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21 Jul 2022 By James Baker
How the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill affects you
Nadine Dorries and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sports (DCMS) have released their Data Protection and Digital Information Bill– Our policy expert Mariano deli Santi has produced his initial analysis ‘Data the Wrong Direction’ of the implications.
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14 Jul 2022 By Dr Monica Horten
MPs must rethink this dire Bill
The government has delayed further debate on the Online Safety Bill until the Autumn.
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07 Jul 2022 By Jim Killock
Board nominations Open
Open Rights Group is electing three Board members in 2022, to help lead our governance and oversight at a time of major change.
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Mass Surveillance
28 Jun 2022 By Sophia Akram
‘Prevent’ and the attack on free speech
A review of the government’s controversial Prevent duty has been a long time coming.
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27 Jun 2022 By Mariano delli Santi
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 Government are at it again.
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22 Jun 2022 By Aislinn Lambert
Make a difference! An invitation to join the Open Rights Group Advisory Council
Do you have deep knowledge of the digital rights space?
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