Blog
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
UK data reforms: ORG meeting with members of 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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07 Oct 2022 By Sophia Akram
Young people are being 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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Mass Surveillance
29 Sep 2022 By Dr Monica Horten
Online Safety Bill: 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, The images were widely circulated on social media and the police eventually were forced to acknowledge that these protests were, in fact, lawful.
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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 public debate on immigration be suppressed by the Online Safety Bill?
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
How the Online Safety Bill puts a spy in your pocket
The deployment of client-side scanning on private messaging systems was trailed in a recent 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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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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17 Jun 2022 By Mariano delli Santi
Brace yourselves: new UK data laws are coming
The Government have just announced their plans to gut the UK General Data Protection Regulation.
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17 Mar 2022 By Jim Killock
Online Safety made dangerous
From the government press release, and without seeing the text of the Bill, there are already things we can say about the Online Safety Bill.
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15 Mar 2022 By Open Rights Group
Digital Rights and Ukraine
The war in Ukraine is having profound impacts on the digital rights of people in Ukraine, Russia and the UK.
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10 Mar 2022 By Jim Killock
Internet policy is broken
The government’s proposals for the Online Safety Bill are getting worse, rather than better.
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09 Mar 2022 By Sanjana Varghese
Bridging sectors – new grassroots alliances for migrant digital justice
The story so far
Since establishing the Migrant Digital Justice Programme (previously known as the Immigration, Data and Technology Programme) in 2020, ORG has been working at the intersection of the migrants’ rights sector and the digital rights ecosystem.
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25 Feb 2022 By Jim Killock
The Online Safety Bill: punishing victims
The government has today announced two new regressive and unworkable additions to the Online Safety Bill.
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23 Feb 2022 By Sahdya Darr
New name and start for our migration work
Since its inception in 2020, our immigration, data and technology programme has worked to understand the needs and capacities of civil society organisations in the field of migrant’ rights and support them to incorporate digital advocacy in their work.
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03 Feb 2022 By Mariano delli Santi
A day of reckoning for IAB and Adtech
In a damning verdict, the Belgian Data Protection Authority ruled the illegality of IAB cookie consent banners.
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17 Jan 2022 By Sahdya Darr
Government disregards Court’s Immigration Exemption ruling
This week the House of Commons and the House of Lords will consider the Government’s proposed legislation regarding amendments to the immigration exemption.
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22 Dec 2021 By Mike Morel
Our year of action
With Britain still in the throes of Covid-19, 2021 was a truly unique year for the movement to protect our digital rights.
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17 Dec 2021 By Robert Sharp
Joint Committee advice cannot fix flawed Online Safety Bill
On 14 December 2021, the Joint Parliamentary Committee charged with scrutinising the draft Online Safety Bill published its report.
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14 Dec 2021 By Jim Killock
Online Safety Bill will not tackle monopoly abuse
As Parliament makes its recommendations on the Online Safety Bill, trying to fix the problems of accountability it brings, while perhaps adding new complexities, we need to step back and ask whether the Bill will do the job it is setting out to do.
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13 Dec 2021 By Robert Sharp
Online Safety Bill: Sweeping Ministerial Powers
The Joint Parliamentary Committee scrutinising the government’s Draft Online Safety Bill concluded its evidence sessions on 4 November.
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12 Dec 2021 By Robert Sharp
What’s the Harm in the Online Safety Bill?
Throughout the development of the government’s Online Harms policy, a central concern of ORG and other human rights organisations is how any legally mandated content moderation policy could practically be achieved.
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11 Dec 2021 By Open Rights Group
Our Adtech challenge: what we won, what we lost and what we do next
On Friday 26 November 2021, the Upper Tribunal ruled (in Killock and Veale & Ors v Information Commissioner (GI/113/2021 and ors) on our challenge against the ICO’s handling of our complaint concerning illegal data processing in the AdTech sector.
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10 Dec 2021 By Robert Sharp
Online Safety Bill: Kill Switch for Encryption
Of the many worrying provisions contained within the draft Online Safety Bill, perhaps the most consequential is contained within Chapter 4, at clauses 63-69.
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01 Dec 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
ORG response to Data: a new direction
We submitted our response to Government plans to deregulate data protection, also known as “Data: a new direction”.
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11 Nov 2021 By Sahdya Darr
Newsletter: Migration, Data and Digital Rights
Welcome to the November edition of Migration, Data and Digital Rights!
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10 Nov 2021 By Jim Killock and Mariano delli Santi
Lloyd vs Google: UK needs collective redress
In 2012, Google hacked the web browers of million of Apple users to store data on their devices and track their activities online.
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13 Oct 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
New UK data laws are Govt revenge against NHS patients
Health data has become one of the most valued prizes of the surveillance economy, but they aren’t being used to “save lives”.
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01 Oct 2021 By Jim Killock
Lord Frost says: bypass Parliament to rewrite EU rules
Government is considering demanding powers to rewrite any and all ‘retained EU legislation’ while bypassing Parliament.
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29 Sep 2021 By Jim Killock and Mariano delli Santi
Weakening privacy will fuel online harms
Government is asking a big question: how do we regulate the tech industry?
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22 Sep 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
New UK data laws will harm mothers and children
In data: a new direction, the UK Government proposes to reform legitimate interest.
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17 Sep 2021 By Heather Burns
Papers please: nationality checks for the British internet?
Over the course of the debate on how to tackle online harms, we’ve drawn attention to the risks to digital and human rights which can arise when technical solutionism meets poorly drafted legislation.
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15 Sep 2021 By Heather Burns
How the Online Safety Bill lets politicians define free speech
The Joint Pre-Legislative Scrutiny committee has opened its work into the draft Online Safety Bill.
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14 Sep 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
Vandalising your privacy rights
Anything you say and do can and will be used against you.
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10 Sep 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
Why on earth is the Government mucking about with our privacy laws?
Thursday evening, the UK Government published their long-awaited proposal for a new UK data protection regime.
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09 Sep 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
Cookie banners, explained
Cookie banners are hitting the headlines, as policymakers and activists across political divides seek to take action on them once and for all.
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08 Sep 2021 By Sahdya Darr
Afghans targeted by fake Home Office website
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is currently deciding whether it will take further action against a fake website created by the Home Office.
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27 Aug 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
Government prepares to take back control – of your privacy
The UK Government has unveiled their plans to deregulate data protection laws.
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18 Aug 2021 By Sahdya Darr
Digital deception & disinformation used to deter migrants
The Information Commissioner’s Office has opened an investigation into a fake website created by the Home Office.
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30 Jul 2021 By Sahdya Darr
Immigration, Data & Technology Newsletter
Welcome to the July edition of Immigration, Data and Technology!
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27 Jul 2021 By Heather Burns
Age verification in the Online Safety Bill
The draft Online Safety Bill’s provisions on mandatory age verification don’t just threaten your rights to privacy and freedom of expression – they also threaten the integrity of the Internet’s architecture.
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20 Jul 2021 By Heather Burns
Encryption in the Online Safety Bill
Let’s look at how the Online Safety Bill brings the contents of your private communications into scope for scanning, monitoring, and censorship.
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12 Jul 2021 By Heather Burns & Jim Killock
Racists must be prosecuted, not moderated
The wave of racist comments on social media that has followed the England football defeat is reprehensible: but so is the fiction that this problem must be ‘solved’ by social media companies.
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06 Jul 2021 By Heather Burns
Access denied: Service blocking in the Online Safety Bill
As the Online Safety Bill approaches the pre-legislative scrutiny process, attention is being drawn to the powers which government will have to redefine, constrain, and censor the boundaries of our free and legal speech.
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01 Jul 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
Fear and loathing in the UK adequacy decision
On June 28, the European Commission adopted the UK adequacy decision, which will allow personal data to be transferred from the EU to the UK without additional safeguards.
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30 Jun 2021 By Sahdya Darr
Newsletter: Immigration, Data and Technology
Welcome to the June edition of Immigration, Data and Technology!
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23 Jun 2021 By Heather Burns
Duty to Censor: What’s legal to say should be legal to type
Open Rights Group has joined Index on Censorship’s “Legal to say, legal to type” campaign to scrutinise and push back against the threats to freedom of expression created by government’s Online Safety Bill.
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17 Jun 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
Stand Up for Privacy
Yesterday, on June 16, the Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform published a report outlining their vision to “refresh the UK’s approach to regulation now that we have left the EU”.
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14 Jun 2021 By Heather Burns
MPs: Encryption keeps your constituents safe
Today (14 June) Open Rights Group has joined over thirty digital and human rights organisations in calling on MPs to keep their constituents safe by protecting end-to-end encryption from legislative threats.
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09 Jun 2021 By Heather Burns & Sahdya Darr
Is government preparing to censor discussions about migration?
Over the weekend, you may have seen news reports discussing how Home Secretary Priti Patel has ordered social media companies to remove posts which “glamourise” dangerous migrant crossings from Europe.
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01 Jun 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
Adtech: let’s get rid of cookie banners
A nuisance is troubling the Internet and the digital life of Europeans: the consent or ‘cookie’ banner.
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28 May 2021 By Sahdya Darr
Newsletter: Immigration, Data and Technology
Welcome to the May edition of Immigration, Data and Technology!
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05 May 2021 By Heather Burns
Online abuse: Why management liability isn’t the answer
As part of recent high-profile campaigns against social media abuse, calls have been repeated to impose criminal sanctions and penalties onto the directors and managers of companies where that abuse takes place.
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29 Apr 2021 By Open Rights Group
Don’t let the Government create a digital Police state
You might be aware of plans to give Police more powers through the Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Bill 2021.
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29 Apr 2021 By Jim Killock
The Government assault on your privacy rights
It has been a busy few months for developments on privacy, even placing the COVID response aside.
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27 Apr 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
Adtech vs. iOS, explained
With their last update for the iOS operating system, Apple rolled out a feature called App Transparency Tracking framework.
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23 Apr 2021 By Sahdya Darr
NFI proposals seek to give police more powers
Many people are aware that the UK Government is trying to give police more powers through the Police,Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021.
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22 Apr 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
#StopStalkerAds: adtech is watching you!
Following our open letter to the European Parliament, Open Rights Group are launching a new campaign that wants to #StopStalkerAds.
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21 Apr 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
UK Adequacy: it’s only the beginning
The European Data Protection Board issued their opinion about the draft UK adequacy decision.
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14 Apr 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
Adtech: an Open Letter to the European Parliament
Today, Open Rights Group, Panoptykon and Liberties EU sent an Open Letter to the European Parliament, asking them to stand up for the ePrivacy Regulation and our online privacy.
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06 Apr 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
Adtech: An industry broken by design and by default
European Digital Rights (EDRi) recently published “targeted online: an industry broken by design and by default”.
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01 Apr 2021 By Heather Burns
Endgame for end-to-end encryption
Today, Wired has reported that the Home Office is actively exploring legal and technical mechanisms to compel Facebook and WhatsApp to break end-to-end encrypted messaging.
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31 Mar 2021 By Sahdya Darr
Immigration, Data and Technology newsletter
Welcome to the third edition of Immigration, Data and Technology!
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29 Mar 2021 By Mariano delli Santi & Heather Burns
First look at vaccine passports
Countries around the world are considering introducing vaccine passports, and the UK is among them.
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26 Mar 2021 By Sahdya Darr
Privacy & migrant groups win extension on data matching powers
This week Open Rights Group along with other privacy advocates and organisations working for migrants’ rights were pleased to be informed that the National Fraud Initiative (NFI) agreed to our request to further extend the deadline to respond to the NFI Data Matching Powers and new Code of Data Matching Practice consultation until 5 May.
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24 Mar 2021 By Jim Killock & Heather Burns
Nominet’s chance to build a better Internet
This week, during Nominet’s EGM, Open Rights Group cast its organisational membership vote to change the current Board membership.
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18 Mar 2021 By Matthew Rice & Mariano delli Santi
Europe cannot rubber stamp the UK’s data laws
The United Kingdom is currently awaiting a decision from Europe on whether it provides adequate standards of data protection.
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17 Mar 2021 By Matthew Rice & Heather Burns
Trust is a two-way street: the UK’s digital identity framework
Open Rights Group has recently responded to the DCMS policy paper on the UK’s digital identity and attributes trust framework.
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16 Mar 2021 By Heather Burns
#SaveAnonymity: Together we can defend anonymity
In recent days, a petition has circulated online which calls for a legal requirement to provide a verified form of ID in order to open a social media account.
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11 Mar 2021 By Heather Burns
Save Online Speech Coalition Launches
Today Open Rights Group has joined our colleagues from Big Brother Watch, the Adam Smith Institute, Article 19, Global Partners Digital, and Index on Censorship in launching a campaign to demand that the Online Safety Bill protects freedom of expression online.
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10 Mar 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
Blindspots in new guidance on use of data in campaigning
The Information Commissioner’s Office published their new “Guidance for the use of personal data in political campaigning”.
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02 Mar 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
Wanted: corporate lobbyist to take over the ICO
Communicating “the wider benefits of data sharing”, “commercial and business acumen”, experience “of using data to drive innovation and growth”; and, of course, “excellent communication and relationship management skills”.
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26 Feb 2021 By Sahdya Darr
Data & Immigration update – February newsletter
Welcome to the second edition of Immigration, Data and Technology!
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25 Feb 2021 By Matthew Rice
The Government’s own goals on data privacy
The UK Government has decided not to take up an optional power to improve data protection enforcement.
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24 Feb 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
Adtech – an offer you can’t refuse
This spring, Apple will implement a new policy that will require App Store developers to ask for users’ permission in order to track them online.
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27 Jan 2021 By Sahdya Darr
Newsletter: Immigration, Data and Technology
Happy New Year!
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25 Jan 2021 By Mariano delli Santi
ICO enforcement: two years after the GDPR
On Tuesday, the Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham will appear in front of the DCMS Committee for a hearing, where she will be questioned about her office’s role in protecting personal data against targeted online advertising, and the use of personal data for tackling the coronavirus pandemic.
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Data and Democracy
22 Jan 2021 By Matthew Rice
ORG Takes Political Parties to Privacy Watchdog
On 11 December 2020, the eve of the anniversary of the 2019 General Election Open Rights Group submitted complaints, represented by the data rights firm AWO, to the Information Commissioner’s Office on behalf of data subjects on the processing of personal data by the Labour Party, the Conservative and Unionist Party and the Liberal Democrats.
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