Blog

25 Feb 2015 By Ruth Coustick-Deal

CITIZENFOUR: Best documentary of 2014 on tonight

In response to Edward Snowden’s revelations that GCHQ and the NSA were invading the privacy of ordinary citizens through programmes unknown to the public, and to the politicians, ORG joined with Article 19, Big Brother Watch, English PEN, Liberty, and Privacy International to form the Don’t Spy on Us coalition.

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25 Feb 2015 By Ruth Coustick-Deal

Election funding update: half way there!

We launched our campaign to fund our election work on the 10th January with the goal of 300 new supporters We’re excited to announce we are now 50% of the way towards our goal!

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09 Feb 2015 By Javier Ruiz

Hate speech social media bans may not be the answer

The All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism has recently published a major report raising concerns on the rise of attacks on Jewish people in the UK.

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05 Feb 2015 By Ruth Coustick-Deal

The real impact of surveillance

The Government are finally having conversations about surveillance, but unfortunately they are simply framing it as an Us vs Them story, a choice between security and privacy.

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29 Jan 2015 By Ruth Coustick-Deal

Help fundraise for us

Events this week showed just why we need our members: four House of Lords peers attempted to sneak the Snooper’s Charter into law.

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27 Jan 2015 By Jim Killock

Lords should drop the Snooper’s Charter and let the parties set out their views at the election

Many Lords argued that Parliament should be given the chance to vote on the legislation, decrying the years of delay – read repeated defeats – in bringing this Bill into law.

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27 Jan 2015 By Lee Maguire

2015

Blog.

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Digital Privacy

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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15 Jan 2015 By Ruth Coustick-Deal

Join today and vote for digital rights

We don’t protect our civil liberties by attacking them.

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Digital Privacy

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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13 Jan 2015 By Pam Cowburn

Letters from ORG’s Advisory Council members: Mass surveillance is not needed

Paul Bernal, lecturer at UEA Law School: It is not just libertarians who are dismayed by the growing calls for the return of the Snooper’s Charter in response to events in Paris, but anyone who has studied the reality of recent terrorist atrocities and the role of intelligence and surveillance.

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09 Jan 2015 By Pam Cowburn

The response to the Charlie Hebdo murders is not more untargeted surveillance

We know that the Hebdo offices were already a target, having been firebombed in 2011, over the publication of a caricature of the prophet Mohammed.

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19 Dec 2014 By Elizabeth Knight

ORG signs amicus brief in Microsoft case

In the case, US law enforcement agencies are seeking to access data in an email account held on a server in Ireland.

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18 Dec 2014 By Ruth Coustick-Deal

10 Brilliant Moments

This year we saw thousands of people take part in our campaigns to defend our rights online.

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08 Dec 2014 By Lydia Snodin

ORGCon Day 2 – Learning How To Campaign

The second day of our annual conference was a series of interactive training sessions to share information on how to campaign, plus an all-day hack space.

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05 Dec 2014 By Elizabeth Knight

Court ruling paves the way for European Court of Human Rights to consider ‘Privacy not PRISM’ case

The decision should enable the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to proceed with hearing the “Privacy not PRISM” case brought by ORG and others.

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05 Dec 2014 By Elizabeth Knight

Court ruling paves the way for European Court of Human Rights to consider ‘Privacy not PRISM’ case

The decision should enable the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to proceed with hearing the “Privacy not PRISM” case brought by ORG and others.

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05 Dec 2014 By Elizabeth Knight

Court ruling paves the way for European Court of Human Rights to consider ‘Privacy not PRISM’ case

The decision should enable the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to proceed with hearing the “Privacy not PRISM” case brought by ORG and others.

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05 Dec 2014 By Elizabeth Knight

Court ruling paves the way for European Court of Human Rights to consider ‘Privacy not PRISM’ case

The decision should enable the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to proceed with hearing the “Privacy not PRISM” case brought by ORG and others.

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05 Dec 2014 By Jim Killock

Website blocking orders made more transparent

So far, BT, Sky and Virgin are providing more information about the blocks, stating that: you have the right to apply to the High Court to vary or discharge the Orders below if you are affected by the blocks which have been imposed.

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02 Dec 2014 By Ruth Coustick-Deal

ORGCon2014: In review

Thank you so much for coming to ORGCon2014, we hope you had a brilliant time, and enjoyed learning and meeting with the digital rights community.

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26 Nov 2014 By Elizabeth Knight

Lee Rigby murder should not be used as excuse for an increase in state power

The report showed that Rigby’s killers Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale had appeared in seven different investigations by the security services and there were “errors in these operations, where processes were not followed, decisions not recorded, or delays encountered”.

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24 Nov 2014 By Jim Killock

Blanket data retention does not come in ‘good’ and ‘bad’ forms

These principles include that data retention should be targeted against a specific threat, confined by criteria such as a specific time or place.

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12 Nov 2014 By Florri Burton

3 days to go till ORGCon2014

We are all busy getting ready for ORGCon2014 this weekend.

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11 Nov 2014 By Javier Ruiz

ORG and Privacy International publish guidance on privacy and open government

Open Rights Group and Privacy International have worked with the Transparency and Accountability Initiative to develop a new chapter on Privacy and Data Protection in the Open Government Guide, which will be officially launched at Open Up on November 12th.

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06 Nov 2014 By Ed Johnson-Williams

GCHQ are plunging into the privacy debate.

Writing in Tuesday’s Financial Times, the new director of GCHQ Robert Hannigan, called for “greater co-operation from technology companies” to stop terrorists and criminals groups using online services as their “command-and-control networks of choice”.

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06 Nov 2014 By Jim Killock

The courts should decide how much privacy we’re entitled to – not GCHQ

In his first public statement since becoming Director of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan yesterday described the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google and Apple as, ‘the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals,’ and called on them to give ‘greater co-operation’ to the intelligence services.

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18 Oct 2014 By Richard King

Hacking for your digital rights

The day was all about planning and prototyping hacks to help defend digital rights directly, raise awareness of ORG’s issues, support our campaigns with evidence and make ORG more accessible to everyone.

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14 Oct 2014 By Ed Johnson-Williams

TTIP’s threat to our privacy and culture

TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) is a trade agreement currently being negotiated behind closed doors between the United States and the European Union.

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06 Oct 2014 By Ed Paton-Williams and Elizabeth Knight

Journalists and their sources require privacy. But so does everyone else

We support stronger protection for journalists and their sources.

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03 Oct 2014 By Elizabeth Knight

Join ORG to fight increasing surveillance and attacks on our human rights

David Cameron also announced that the government intends to scrap the Human Rights Act.

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02 Oct 2014 By Elizabeth Knight

Will we now see parliamentary footage used in parodies?

Previously, broadcasters had been banned from using the footage for purposes other than reporting news.

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30 Sep 2014 By Jim Killock

Theresa May’s call for new Snooper’s Charter can launch a national debate

Theresa May said: … because the way in which we communicate is increasingly online, our ability to obtain the data we need is declining rapidly and dangerously.

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25 Sep 2014 By David Allen Green

When can a High Court grant an injunction to trade mark holders against ISPs to block access to ‘infringing’ websites?

The question before the Court is whether the owner of a trade mark can obtain an injunction – not against an alleged counterfeiter, or even against the owners and operators of the websites on which counterfeiters sell their items.

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23 Sep 2014 By Jim Killock

Help us start campaigning in Scotland

Major questions remain.

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16 Sep 2014 By Javier Ruiz

ORG rejects calls for 10 year prison sentences for online copyright breaches

The consultation, carried out on behalf of the IPO by Inngot is based around the following question: “Today, there is a significant difference between the penalties for offline and online copyright infringement.

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04 Sep 2014 By Javier Ruiz

Culture Secretary threatens search engines with anti-piracy legislation

In his speech to the AGM of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) Javid skimmed over existing government policies, from tax reliefs to £246 million in music education hubs that will give children the chance to learn to play an instrument.

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04 Sep 2014 By Pam Cowburn

Tom Newton Dunn is one in half a million

The request was made to identify police whistleblowers who contacted Newton Dunn over the Plebgate scandal.

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29 Aug 2014 By Ruth Coustick-Deal

Digital Rights in Scotland: Decision Time

As the vote on Scottish Independence fast approaches, we are worried by the lack of a strong network of rights organisations in Scotland.

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19 Aug 2014 By Pam Cowburn

Cameron’s big stand will have little impact

Yesterday, the Prime Minister David Cameron announced his latest effort to take a ‘big stand on protecting our children online’.

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30 Jul 2014 By Javier Ruiz

Victory: format shifting and parody clear last hurdle

Reform of outdated copyright laws has been a major campaign focus for ORG from day one.

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25 Jul 2014 By Javier Ruiz

Ofcom report shows consumers don’t want filters

The ISPs told Ofcom how many customers have been offered the filters, and how many have set them up.

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18 Jul 2014 By Jim Killock

Dear Theresa, see you in court

But in doing so they won’t have had the final word.

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17 Jul 2014 By Jim Killock and Elizabeth Knight

DRIP: Convenience or Necessity?

What is beyond doubt is that the UK police seem to use data on a pretty routine basis.

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16 Jul 2014 By Jim Killock

Scottish NGO results

We have removed most of the “dead” websites we found in the dataset.

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15 Jul 2014 By Jim Killock

#DRIP heroes, round one

#DRIP HEROES For a list of everyone who voted against the bill, a smaller list, see Hansard.

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14 Jul 2014 By Pam Cowburn

The DRIP myth list

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10 Jul 2014 By Ruth Coustick-Deal

‘Emergency’ Data Retention: What I told my MP

The European Court of Justice ruled in April that blanket data retention, which the government requires of ISPs, is illegal and ignores the fundamental rights to privacy and data protection.

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10 Jul 2014 By Jim Killock

Updates on ’emergency’ data retention law

Email your MP – No Emergency!

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07 Jul 2014 By Jim Killock

Theresa May is attempting to mislead the public

The real reason they need to legislate on data retention is that they are asking ISPs to operate illegally by retaining data, since the CJEU struck the Data Retention Directive down.

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Digital Privacy

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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03 Jul 2014 By Jim Killock

Getting filter categories right

When we set up our filtered Internet lines, we did our best to choose the ‘normal’ set of filters for each line.

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Digital Privacy

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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19 Jun 2014 By Elizabeth Knight

Data retention: why we have to keep the pressure on ISPs

In the last four hours, over 400 ORG supporters have contacted their ISPs to demand that they stop retaining customers’ email, SMS, web and phone data.

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19 Jun 2014 By Ed Johnson-Williams

Demand your ISP stops retaining your data

In April, the European law forcing Internet Service Providers like BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin to collect our communications data was struck down by the European Court of Justice.

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10 Jun 2014 By Pam Cowburn

Don’t Spy on Us: Day of Action, June 7, 2014

On Saturday, June 7, the Don’t Spy on Us campaign and The Guardian hosted a day of action to mark the anniversary of Edward Snowden’s revelations about mass surveillance by the NSA and GCHQ.

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07 Jun 2014 By Jim Killock

No transparency for the UK in Vodafone’s transparency report

Vodafone’s argument for publishing these statistics where they can is that “The need for governments to balance their duty to protect the state and its citizens against their duty to protect individual privacy is now the focus of a significant global public debate.

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05 Jun 2014 By Ed Johnson-Williams

Snowden: one year on and still no action by the British government

Last weekend I was on holiday in Hamburg.

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04 Jun 2014 By Ruth Coustick-Deal

Big announcement: Strengthening ORG’s legal work

ORG’s first full time Legal Director started work this week.

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29 May 2014 By Javier Ruiz

How will government share your data?

The Cabinet Office has started an early pre-consultation process looking at removing barriers to sharing or linking different databases across government departments.

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22 May 2014 By Jim Killock

Please vote for a digital rights candidate today

WePromise.

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15 May 2014 By Javier Ruiz

Landmark ruling by European Court on Google and the “Right to be Forgotten”

The European Court of Justice has published a landmark ruling forcing Google to remove some search results related to Mr Costeja González, a Spanish national, after he claimed the linked information was outdated and irrelevant, giving a wrong impression of him.

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14 May 2014 By Ed Johnson-Williams

ORG hands in petition saying no to HMRC’s tax data sell off

We handed in our tax data sell-off petition to HMRC earlier today, along with ORG Advisory Council member Julian Huppert MP and campaign groups 38 Degrees and SumofUs.

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13 May 2014 By Jason Kitcat

Guest blog: Estonia and the risks of internet voting

In my capacity as an ORG Advisory Council member I’ve been working with an independent team of election observers researching the Internet voting systems used by Estonia.

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08 May 2014 By Jim Killock

Lobby tries to kill private copying with demand for iPod tax

Right now, both the private copying exception and parody appear to be delayed.

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16 Apr 2014 By Jim Killock

Quiz your MEP candidates on digital rights

Last week, the European Court of Justice declared the Data Retention Directive invalid: which has huge implications for our claim that UK law supervising surveillance is inadequate.

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15 Apr 2014 By Jim Killock

Help us to re-start the debate about internet filters

At times the campaign to prevent internet filters has bordered on the surreal, such as when the Deputy Children’s Commissioner Sue Berelowitz said, ‘no one should be panicking – but why should there not be a moral panic?

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Digital Privacy

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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10 Apr 2014 By Jim Killock

Back to the coalition agreement: data retention laws should not be revived

No doubt, once the coalition settled down, ministers were briefed that the retention of user data was required by European law: so they could easily forget about this pledge.

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09 Apr 2014 By Jim Killock

ISPs will break the law if they continue to retain our data

The Data Retention Directive is retrospectively invalid: not only is it gone, but in legal terms it never was.

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08 Apr 2014 By Pam Cowburn

Victory for privacy rights as ECJ rules that Data Retention Directive is invalid

There was a major victory for privacy rights today when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the 2006 Data Retention Directive is invalid on the grounds that it severely interferes with two of our fundamental rights: the right to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data.

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Digital Privacy

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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04 Apr 2014 By Ed Johnson-Williams

Defend your digital rights in the European elections this May

While Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg kicked around old political footballs like immigration on Wednesday night, there was a glaring omission from the debate: digital rights.

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03 Apr 2014 By Jim Killock

Join to found ORG Scotland

Last month, we asked our Scottish supporters whether we should set up an office to deal with policies from Holyrood.

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28 Mar 2014 By Jim Killock

Copyright: it’s a long fight to get it right

The result is that ORG has been fighting since 2005 for sensible copyright laws, and resisting overblown attempts by rights holders to control the flow of information on the Internet.

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27 Mar 2014 By Ed Johnson-Williams

Thanks to ORG supporters copyright takes a great leap forward into the 21st century

This is a big victory for ORG.

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26 Mar 2014 By Ed Johnson-Williams

Why is parodying Sky’s Captain America filtering adverts still illegal?

He’s “Here to serve and protect your family” with “Heroic new internet protection that lets you filter which websites can be seen in your home.

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21 Mar 2014 By Pam Cowburn

Bingo and beer spoofs show that our copyright laws are a joke

After the Conservative Chairman, Grant Shapps, tweeted an advert praising cuts to beer and bingo duty, Twitter responded with a series of spoofs ads that derided this seemingly clumsy attempt to engage with the working classes.

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20 Mar 2014 By Emily Goodhand

Why UK copyright reform is needed

This is a guest blog post by Emily Goodhand.

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20 Mar 2014 By Jim Killock

Will ‘voluntary’ copyright enforcement protect users’ rights?

It is approaching four years since the Digital Economy Act was passed, and still measures within it to deal with individuals alleged to have infringed copyright have not been implemented.

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17 Mar 2014 By Javier Ruiz

EU crucial vote on Net Neutrality

Net neutrality is a fundamental aspect of the Internet as we know it.

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12 Mar 2014 By Alan Cox

Openness and Privacy in Big Data

This is a guest blog from ORG Advisory Council member Alan Cox.

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12 Mar 2014 By Javier Ruiz

Open Rights Group at RightsCon

ORG participated in RightsCon, an international conference organised by Access that saw 700 participants convening in San Francisco to talk about censorship, surveillance and digital rights in general.

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Digital Privacy

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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07 Mar 2014 By Jim Killock

The world we want and how we get there

We wrote this short statement of our aims, objectives and values after asking all our supporters what you thought we should be working on, and what you thought our values are.

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28 Feb 2014 By Javier Ruiz

ICO Survey on the Code of Practice on Anonymisation

The ICO survey on the Code of Practice on Anonymisation closes today.

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11 Feb 2014 By Peter Bradwell

Join our new campaign to fight mass surveillance

You can learn more about the new campaign, sign our petition and email your MP at our new Don’t Spy On Us campaign site.

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07 Feb 2014 By Ed Johnson-Williams

Don’t Spy On Us – Help get the word out!

On Tuesday, internet users all over the world are standing up to say no to GCHQ and the NSA’s mass surveillance.

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04 Feb 2014 By Jim Killock

You did it!

You can still help out – there are always extra costs, including rent and fees for legal publications, that an extra contribution can cover costs for.

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03 Feb 2014 By ORG Law project

Our lawyers want to have a word with you

That’s why we are asking you to join ORG today, so they can hire a Legal Director.

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29 Jan 2014 By Cory Doctorow

Open Rights Group and impact litigation

This case not only marks a chance to make a change for better—it also marks a new stage in ORG’s growth as an organisation that makes the Internet safe for human habitation.

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Digital Privacy

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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