The entanglement of civilian & military data blurs legal boundaries, creating critical gaps in privacy protections. It’s time to bridge this gap.

Tech companies working in both peace and conflict contexts face unpredictable legal duties; their roles and involvement in conflict can vary.

Parties to a conflict increasingly rely on data to inform or justify their decisions. Do they enjoy unrestricted freedom to collect and process data in ways that can later inform technologies employed in civic spaces?

How do the rights to privacy & data protection apply in armed conflict? International Humanitarian Law seems to be silent on data protection. But protections of these rights are needed more than ever before to limit the adverse effects of exploitative data-intensive systems.

What does this mean for our future? Learn more in this piece we wrote for Tech Policy Press: www.techpolicy.press/the-tech-arm...

What we’re witnessing here is not just an arms race. It’s a race of technological dependency where civil and military infrastructures are fusing. The battlefield is embedded in our cities, our homes, and our daily lives.

These companies build autonomous drones and robotic systems - part of a growing wave of defence-tech innovation. And our personal data is the critical resource underlying much of this innovation.

Learn more about the UK's use of intrusive surveillance practices on beneficiaries, and the frequent incorrect application of its systems here privacyinternational.org/long-read/43...

Sharing passenger records between agencies to determine benefits is another example of function creep. The collection and sharing of airline data, which once purportedly prevented terrorism, is now being used to decide whether children in the UK receive their government allowance

Innocent families were deprived of a vital benefit because they had taken different routes to exit and re-enter the country, changed their travel plans, or had flights cancelled. Of 23,500 affected families, only around 500 have had their benefits reinstated.

This latest revelation means that the UK's HM Revenue and Customs, which administers the Child Benefit, was accessing airlines' passenger bookings data to inform its assessments, without checking whether flights were actually taken.

Education should nurture curiosity, not feed algorithms that children are unable to consent to. It’s time to question how deeply surveillance is being built into childhood itself.

Read our article with @defenddigitalme.bsky.social 👉 privacyinternational.org/long-read/56...

In Bristol, for example, police “crime incident” reports about schoolchildren are sent directly to the schools through a system built on data from 50,000 families. Parents are rarely told.

Every school day generates new data — behaviour scores, attendance logs, even predictions of future performance. This information can follow a child for life, stored indefinitely in these databases.

🃏 Check out our tech, data and elections checklist to learn about more scary outcomes of the increased use of tech in elections

privacyinternational.org/advocacy/515...

In the run up to Pakistan’s 2024 elections, concerns were raised by voters that they were receiving automated calls and WhatsApp messages from political parties, including the ruling party. Read more in this report by Digital Rights Foundation: digitalrightsfoundation.pk/wp-content/u...

🃏 Check out our tech, data and elections checklist to learn about more scary outcomes of the increased use of tech in elections

privacyinternational.org/advocacy/515...