Category: Surveillance

Image of chip on a circuit board, with a yellow padlock glowing in the centre

32 European police forces attack encryption (again)

Over 30 European police forces have (yet again) attacked the increasing deployment of end-to-end encryption. This is how powerful policy stakeholders (like law enforcement and big business) often win arguments. They never, ever give up, repeating the same arguments ad nauseam — over decades if necessary — regardless of any evidence which emerges.

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UK tribunal fundamentally wrong on Clearview

On 17 October 2023, the UK First-Tier Tribunal held the use of the surveillance system offered by the US company Clearview by non-UK law enforcement and intelligence agencies constituted “an activity which, immediately before [Brexit] completion day, fell outside the scope of EU law”, and hence the GDPR. In this brief analysis, I look at why the Tribunal came to this conclusion, and show it is fundamentally flawed.

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The inadequacy of the US Executive Order on Enhancing Safeguards For US Signals Intelligence Activities

The new US Executive Order does not change the fact the US authorities insist on carrying out indiscriminate, untargeted mass surveillance, also of EU persons and EU governmental and non-governmental entities, by means of bulk collection of data, without independent substantive judicial oversight or effective redress.

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