Amnesty International
Meta pressed to compensate war victims amid claims Facebook inflamed Tigray conflict
Meta is facing growing calls to set up a restitution fund for victims of the Tigray War, which Facebook is alleged to have fueled leading to over 600,000 deaths and…
Researchers say they found spyware used in war for the first time
Security researchers and digital rights organizations believe the government of Azerbaijan used spyware produced by NSO Group to target a government worker, journalists, activists and the human rights ombudsperson in…
Amnesty Canada says it was targeted by Chinese state-sponsored hackers
The Canadian branch of Amnesty International has confirmed it was the target of a “sophisticated” cyberattack carried out by Chinese state-sponsored hackers. The human rights organization said it first detected…
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VCs and founders alike say investors should fold reproductive rights into ESG standards
In the post-Roe era, some VC investors and founders believe the social definition of ESG investing should expand to incorporate pressing human rights issues such as reproductive healthcare.
Over 30 civil society organizations, pro-privacy tech businesses and European startups are making a last-ditch pitch to try to convince EU lawmakers to put stricter limits on surveillance advertising as…
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Poland’s phone spyware scandal raises doubts over 2019 election
A brewing scandal over the alleged historical use of controversial mobile spyware by Poland’s ruling party against an opposition lawmaker is raising questions over the legitimacy of the country’s 2019 parliamentary elections. Internet watchdog Citizen Lab found that the NSO Group’s notorious spyware Pegasus was used to spy on three critics of the Polish government.…
Facebook accused of continuing to surveil teens for ad targeting
The adtech giant formerly known as Facebook is still tracking teens for ad targeting on its social media platforms, according to new research by Fairplay, Global Action Plan and Reset…
VC firms’ failure to carry out adequate due diligence means that a vast majority of them are failing in their responsibility to respect human rights.
This tool tells you if NSO’s Pegasus spyware targeted your phone
Over the weekend, an international consortium of news outlets reported that several authoritarian governments — including Mexico, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates — used spyware developed by NSO Group…
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A new ‘digital violence’ platform maps dozens of victims of NSO Group’s spyware
For the first time, researchers have mapped all the known targets, including journalists, activists, and human rights defenders, whose phones were hacked by Pegasus, a spyware developed by NSO Group. Forensic Architecture, an academic unit at Goldsmiths, University of London that investigates human rights abuses, scoured dozens of reports from human rights groups, carried out…
No Google-Fitbit merger without human rights remedies, says Amnesty to EU
Human rights NGO, Amnesty International, has written to the EU’s competition regulator calling for Google’s acquisition of wearable maker Fitbit to be blocked — unless meaningful safeguards can be baked…
Human Capital: Amazon and CZI face labor disputes as Biden promises gig workers better protections
Welcome back to Human Capital. In this week’s edition of HC, you’ll read about the latest labor struggles at Amazon and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, President-Elect Joe Biden’s promises to…
Amnesty calls for human rights controls on EU digital surveillance exports
In a new report, Amnesty International says it has found evidence of EU companies selling digital surveillance technologies to China — despite the stark human rights risks of technologies like…
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Will online privacy make a comeback in 2020?
Last year was a landmark for online privacy in many ways, with something of a consensus emerging that consumers deserve protection from the companies that sell their attention and behavior for profit. The debate now is largely around how to regulate platforms, not whether it needs to happen. The consensus among key legislators acknowledges that…
Amnesty International latest to slam surveillance giants Facebook and Google as ‘incompatible’ with human rights
Human rights charity Amnesty International is the latest to call for reform of surveillance capitalism — blasting the business models of “surveillance giants” Facebook and Google in a new report…
Sahara Reporters founder Sowore remains detained in Nigeria
The founder of African investigative digital media site Sahara Reporters Omoyele Sowore remains detained in Nigeria on charges including treason, his wife Opeyemi Sowore told TechCrunch. Her husband founded Sahara…
A look at the many ways China suppresses online discourse about the Tiananmen Square protests
Every year before the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4, the Chinese government begins to exert even more control over what information people can access online. This…
Europe’s highest human rights court to hear challenge to UK’s bulk surveillance regime
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has agreed to hear a legal challenge to the use of bulk data collection surveillance powers by U.K. intelligence…
Amnesty International used machine-learning to quantify the scale of abuse against women on Twitter
Update: Twitter’s response has been added to the end of this post. A new study by Amnesty International and Element AI attempts to put numbers to a problem many women…
UK’s mass surveillance regime violated human rights law, finds ECHR
In another blow to the UK government’s record on bulk data handling for intelligence purposes the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that state surveillance practices violated human…
Twitter violates womens’ human rights, according to Amnesty International
Twitter has found itself under fire again. This time, it’s coming from Amnesty International, a non-governmental organization that focuses on human rights. Amnesty International’s new report, “#ToxicTwitter: Violence and abuse…
Legal representatives of the UK government faced a raft of questions today from judges sitting in the European Court of Human Rights hearing a challenge to intelligence agencies’ bulk collection…
Activists launch campaign asking President Obama to pardon Edward Snowden
Activists and lawyers from a host of human rights organizations launched a campaign today asking President Obama to issue a pardon to whistleblower Edward Snowden before Obama leaves office in…
Amnesty, EFF, Privacy International Put Out Free Anti-Surveillance Tool
Resistance is digital. Human rights charity Amnesty International is one of several organizations behind the release of a free, open source anti-surveillance tool called Detekt.
