privacy
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Reject plans for a mandatory BritCard (digital ID)
Sir Keir Starmer is considering a mandatory digital ID scheme called “BritCard” that would make us all reliant on a digital pass to go about our daily lives. Continue reading
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⚠️ Privacy Alert: Protesters around the world are being watched — and tracked — like never before
No matter what cause you’re standing up for, joining a protest today can come with serious privacy risks. From facial recognition to phone tracking, surveillance tech is being used to monitor protests and intimidate participants. The risks are real, but there are ways to stay safer. Continue reading
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10 Year Plan for England’s NHS – Week One
The new “Ten Year Plan” shifts decision-making power from you and your family doctor to hospitals and technology companies. There are wordings from the political leadership about patients owning data, but the depths of the policy machine seems to suggest there be a day soon when you ask the NHS to opt your data out… Continue reading
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10 year plan: say goodbye to your data (and say goodbye to your GP)
When the whole 10 year plan comes out tomorrow we’ll start reading it, but the night before what’s out is the last press release before the 10 year plan – ie only the bits that Government most wants to talk about because they think they’re the best parts… Continue reading
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Trump’s embrace of dystopian Palantir spying tool sends stock soaring
The Trump administration has charged the surveillance firm Palantir with agglomerating the US population’s personal data across government agencies, raising alarm about a centralized spying tool targeting hundreds of millions without oversight. Wall Street responded to the news by sending Palantir’s stock price to unprecedented heights. Continue reading
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The selfish fiction of “Safe Return” is reckless and unsafe
The “five safes”* Trusted Research Environments model has been tested over decades, meaning “safe people” doing “safe projects” on “safe data” in “safe settings” to produce “safe outputs”, and while the precise meaning of the five safes evolves with the context and the datasets, half baked additions of “new safes” weaken the whole model for… Continue reading
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Who will become data controller of your medical notes in Wes’s World?
Speaking in Parliament, Wes Streeting said: “NHS England will be brought into the Department entirely”. Entirely is the key word, with consequences for decisions that have not yet been made. The abolition is a change that everyone thought beneficial but few expected before Wes Streeting first announced it two weeks ago and which surprised almost… Continue reading
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Statewatch Bi-weekly bulletin: issue 25/01
Welcome to the year’s first edition of the Statewatch Bulletin.You may have already noticed, but 2025 has brought several changes to Statewatch. You can find explanations of these changes along with our regular newsletter content below, now in a friendlier format.As always, if you appreciate what we do, you can support us with a donation. Every… Continue reading
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Data protection in immigration and asylum: Rights and opportunities for redress
Join us for the next edition of our training webinar on using data protection and privacy law in immigration and asylum proceedings. Continue reading
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Exposed: How Israeli Spies Control Your VPN
An estimated 1.6 billion people rely on VPNs to carry out the most sensitive tasks online, from watching illegal videos to engaging in sexual or political activities. But few people know that a considerable chunk of that market—including three of the six most popular VPNs—is quietly operated by an Israeli-owned company with close connections to… Continue reading
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Palantir’s NHS Federated Data Platform
It’s been a while since our last newsletter, and if you signed up to find out if NHS England would provide more details to help you with your choices around its half-billion pound Palantir platform before it “goes live” at the end of March, the answer is now clear. They won’t. Continue reading
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NHS data grab – we are demanding urgent answers!
Friday, 18 August 2023 — Crowd Justice “We are demanding urgent answers”, say a coalition from the Doctors’ Association UK, Just Treatment and the National Pensioners Convention. Last month they sent a legal letter to the government about the plans to centralise all UK health data into a new database, the “Federated Data Platform” (FDP). Continue reading
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A Trump-supporting billionaire wants access to your NHS records
But NHS England claims we have nothing to worry about. It says the information it will share under this new contract is “pseudonymous,” meaning that identifying details will be removed. Continue reading
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Statewatch News 5 August 2022 Issue 13/22
Friday, 5 August 2022 — Statewatch News (Issue 13/22, also available as a PDF) Welcome to the latest edition of Statewatch News, featuring: Frontex: covert interrogations at the Spanish border with no legal guarantees EU criminal records database access extended for migrant ‘screening’ In-depth research to keep you informed Continue reading
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Big Brother Watch responds to £7.5m Clearview AI fine by the ICO
“This important enforcement action by the ICO should be another nail in the coffin for facial recognition in the UK.” Continue reading
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Google Censorship! Now your Private Email is under threat!
Previously, intercepts like the one below, only happened when you clicked on a link in your Browser but Google have taken censorship onto an entirely new level. Google now intercepts your PRIVATE EMAIL, allegedly to protect you against phishing and other online scams. Continue reading
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UK can join EU surveillance schemes with no parliamentary scrutiny, warns new report
The UK can join intrusive EU surveillance schemes including a pan-European network of police facial recognition databases with no need for parliamentary debate or scrutiny, says a new report published last week by Statewatch. Continue reading
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Big Brother Watch responds to new government anti-encryption campaign
“The Home Office’s bizarre attack on end-to-end encryption is an attack on a technology that Government ministers use for communication every day. It’s disturbing to see such a cynical campaign launched in attempt to justify yet wider and deeper state surveillance of everyday, private conversations. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 