ORG policy update/2018-w20

This is ORG's Policy Update for the week beginning 14/05/2018.

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ORG’s work

  • A huge thank you to everyone who helped out by donating to our CrowdJustice fundraiser for legal fees to fight the Immigration Exemption in the Data Protection Bill. So far we have raised £19,500!
  • Myles Jackman spoke at the launch of Big Brother Watch's Face Off campaign, which aims to tackle the increased use of facial recognition in policing. Myles appeared alongside MPs such as Diane Abbott and David Lammy, and Peers Baroness Jones and Baroness Laurence. Myles delivered a speech co-written with ORG Scotland Director Matthew Rice.
  • This week, we submitted written evidence to the House of Lords Communications Committee in response to their enquiry to investigate the regulation of the internet.
  • ORG have been reaching out to partner organisations to seek letters of support for our legal challenge.
  • We have been working with EDRi this week, to discuss ensuring an aligned campaign on GDPR.
  • ORG staff Javier Ruiz and Ed Johnson-Williams were in Copenhagen, Denmark, taking part in a planning and research meeting for the VIRT-EU project, where we are helping develop tools for privacy and ethical design in the Internet of Things.
  • This week, ORG waves goodbye to Slavka Bielikova, who has worked for us for 2 years since starting as an intern in 2016. We wish Slavka well for the future!

Official meetings

  • Javier Ruiz spoke at the Information Ethics Roundtable conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, presenting our research on tools for data ethics.
  • Matthew Rice and Arjun Datta Majumdar met with Liam McArthur MSP to discuss the collection, retention and use of biometrics in public bodies across Scotland.
  • Jim Killock and Martha Dark had a call with Article 19 to discuss collaboration on a funding campaign for Blocked!

UK Parliament

Data Protection Bill

The Data Protection Bill entered the final Ping Pong stage of Parliamentary proceedings this week, which represents the final stage before the Bill receives Royal Assent and becomes law.

At this stage, a number of minor amendments to the Bill are discussed but big changes are unlikely. This means that it does not look like any success will be seen in getting the Government to remove the controversial Immigration Exemption from the Bill before it passes into law.

An opposition amendment to remove the Immigration Exemption from the Bill was voted down last week, and a Government amendment making mild changes to the Exemption with little practical impact was voted in. Following this development, Open Rights Group and the3million decided to go ahead with a legal challenge to remove the exemption from the Bill once it becomes law.

Since launching our CrowdJustice campaign to fund a legal challenge against the Immigration Exemption, we have raised a staggering £19,500 towards our stretch-goal of £30,000.

You can read a piece from from Jim Killock here on why it is important to challenge the Immigration Exemption.

Other national developments

Big Brother Watch release report on facial recognition

This week, Big Brother Watch (BBW) released Face Off, a campaign and report into the use of facial recognition in UK policing. The report details the results of a Freedom of Information campaign by BBW, and reveals a number of interesting findings.

The key findings highlighted by the report are:

  • The overwhelming majority of the police’s 'matches' using automated facial recognition to date have been inaccurate. On average, a staggering 95% of 'matches' wrongly identified innocent people.
  • Police forces have stored photos of all people incorrectly matched by automated facial recognition systems, leading to the storage of biometric photos of thousands of innocent people.

In particular, the report calls out the Metropolitan Police Service for their use of the technology - pointing out that the MPS have never successfully used the tech to identify a wanted criminal. Instead, 102 members of the public have been incorrectly flagged by the system.

The full report can be downloaded from this page, which also contains more information about BBW's Face Off campaign.

Questions in the UK Parliament

Question about the use of dating sites by children

Jim Shannon asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, "whether his Department is taking steps to monitor and regulate dating sites to prevent the exploitation of under-age people."

Victoria Atkins responded that "as set out in the Internet Safety Strategy, the Government would like to work with adult dating companies to review processes and procedures, and to develop new protective messaging to help their user community prevent young people being put at unnecessary risk, and to ensure they remain in line with the law. We will consider whether there is a stronger role for companies to act to protect young people, including by terminating accounts belonging to young people."

Question about the use of encrypted email in Parliament

Martyn Day asked the Minister for the Cabinet Office, "what steps the Government has taken to ensure encryption is provided on all email between hon. Members' offices and Government departments."

Chloe Smith responded that "Government departments are to encrypt emails to a level appropriate to the content and classification of that communication.", but noted that "the Cabinet Office cannot, however, speak for the security of emails sent by Hon. Members from non-government email systems, as this is dependent on which system and service an email is sent." The response could have made it clearer that it is the Parliamentary Digital Service (PDS) that is primarily responsible for MPs' emails, and not Government.

ORG media coverage

See ORG Press Coverage for full details.

2018-05-18-HuffPost-Hostile Environment 2.0: Why EU Citizens And Open Rights Group Are Taking Government to Court Over Data Protection
Author: Axel Antoni
Summary: Article covering the Immigration Exemption of the DPBill and ORG's CrowdJustice legal funding campaign with the3million.
Topics: Data protection
2018-05-15-The Parallax-What ‘EFail’ means for your email privacy
Author: Seth Rosenblatt
Summary: Board member Alec Muffett quoted in a story about security advice given by the EFF surrounding security vulnerabilities found in common implementations of PGP email encryption.
Topics: Encryption
2018-05-14-bit-tech-Researchers warn of PGP/GPG email vulnerabilities
Author: Gareth Halfacree
Summary: Board member Alec Muffett quoted in a story about security advice given by the EFF surrounding security vulnerabilities found in common implementations of PGP email encryption.
Topics: Encryption
2018-05-14-New Statesman-The government is enlisting startups to help it crack down on ISIS imagery
Author: Oscar Williams
Summary: Jim Killock quoted in a story about the use of algorithmic technology to automatically identify terrorist propaganda uploaded to the internet.
Topics: Internet censorship
2018-05-14-Alphr-UK newsagents to sell “porn passes” to the over 18
Author: Thomas McMullan
Summary: Myles Jackman quoted in a story about AVSecure's 'porn pass' system of selling pornography-related age verification cards in physical retailers.
Topics: Online age verification
2018-05-13-Metro-Adults may be forced to buy £10 'porn pass’ from newsagents to access X-rated movies 'anonymously'
Author: Rachel Bishop
Summary: Board member Alec Muffett quoted in a story about AVSecure's 'porn pass' system of selling pornography-related age verification cards in physical retailers.
Topics: Online age verification
2018-05-13-Daily Mail-Newsagents to sell 'porn passes' so adults visiting X-rated websites can prove they are over 18 when age verification laws come in to force
Author: Stewart Paterson
Summary: Board member Alec Muffett quoted in a story about AVSecure's 'porn pass' system of selling pornography-related age verification cards in physical retailers.
Topics: Online age verification
2018-05-11-The Ferret-Police criticised for million pound spend on mobile phone cracking tools
Author: The Ferret
Summary: Matthew Rice quoted in a story about Police Scotland's purchase of Cellebrite mobile phone hacking and forensic analysis equipment.
Topics: Privacy

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