A debate is brewing after a report submitted to MPs suggested that GCHQ has been breaking the law by conducting mass surveillance on UK citizens. In the red corner sits public law barrister Jemima Stratford…
Make the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns known and we’ll all be better off.
David Shankbone
Privacy – in our bedrooms, at work, on the street and on the internet – is important to everyone. But every week brings another story demonstrating the ongoing shredding of privacy that undermines those…
That’s one way to get around Facebook’s facial recognition.
mw238
While every year since the advent of the internet has had its share of privacy stories, 2013 has been a cornucopia of news about surveillance and personal data. Undoubtedly, the biggest story of the year…
‘Yes we scan!’ NSA monitoring will be a Christmas headache for Barack Obama.
Mike Herbst
Even before opening his stocking on Christmas morning, Barack Obama has his holiday reading cut out for him. His Review Group on Intelligence and Surveillance Technologies has handed him a 300-page report…
What are the implications for democracy if our greatest communication tool - the internet - is turned on the citizenry and used for surveillance?
EPA/Jim Lo Scalzo
Since June, thanks to the information disclosed by National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden, a troubling truth has come to light. The internet, and with it the entire gamut of new communication…
The backlash against state surveillance is growing stronger by the day.
ubiquit
More than 500 high-profile names, including authors, musicians and five Nobel laureates, have signed a petition to the United Nations calling for a bill of digital rights to be developed in the wake of…
Former Gunns chairman John Gay is the most senior executive to have been convicted of insider trading in Australia. He received a fine of $50,000.
David Beniuk/AAP
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is moving to “real-time” monitoring of share trading as another weapon in the ongoing fight against insider trading. But will the use of this form of…
How have we learned to adapt to constant surveillance? Paolo Cirio, Street Ghosts (2012-ongoing).
Image courtesy of the artist
Last week in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, jurors were shown surveillance footage in the trial of a Sydney man, Simon Gittany, who stands accused of murdering his girlfriend Lisa Harnum. It is…
With more internet users going dark, will tech companies follow them?
Owen's/Flickr
With each new revelation of the scope of the American National Security Agency’s spying, perceptions of the importance of privacy are hardening around the world. Systematic monitoring of the world’s communications…
Surveillance can be desirable – but only in the right context.
Shardayyy
Over the past year or so, surveillance issues have become more visible to the public, especially forms of what Australian computer scientist Roger Clarke calls “dataveillance”, or the systematic collection…
“Stranger Visions” is a series of 3D printed portraits based on genetic material taken from public places, by Heather Dewey-Hagborg.
Image courtesy of the artist
“We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.” These aren’t lines from Nineteen Eighty-Four but the words of Eric Schmidt, Google’s notoriously…
Recent revelations about the surveillance surrounding the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, are distinctly Orwellian.
David Blackwell.
If you’re thinking about planning a trip to Russia for the Winter Olympic Games in February next year, prepare to have every aspect of your communications monitored under “the most invasive and systematic…
What are the implications of the latest leaks by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden?
Pigstick1
XKeyscore is an online surveillance tool run by America’s National Security Agency (NSA) that allows analysts to search contents of chats, emails and browsing histories without warrants, according to leaked…
“Lawful interception” has been used by intelligence agencies for decades.
Craig Does Stuff
Hot on the heels of data analyst whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations about the existence of the PRISM electronic surveillance program operated by the United States’ National Security Agency since…
The existence of the NSA’s PRISM program may have come as a surprise to some, but surveillance in public is nothing new.
EPA/Robert Sullivan
Many people have expressed their outrage at recent revelations concerning the United States’ PRISM program, linking it to the overpowering gaze of Big Brother. The PRISM program is rightly a subject of…
So the US National Security Agency (NSA) and possibly GCHQ could have access to our emails. This should not have come as a surprise. It should be seen as a sign of things to come. We already send close…
You have nothing to hide – but does that mean you have nothing to worry about?
JasonDGreat
In the wake of former CIA employee Edward Snowden’s revelations of the PRISM NSA mass surveillance, people are once again asking why the general public should care if they’ve got nothing to hide. “Nothing…
Help was at hand after the Boston bombing – but was it needed?
Georgi Licovski/EPA
Citizen sleuths were out in numbers (or holed up inside, frantically tweeting) after last week’s Boston Marathon bombings. Alongside the drip-drip from mainstream media and the trickle of information from…
The FBI has released images of suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings.
AAP Image/FBI
The FBI has released photos and CCTV footage of the two men considered suspects in this week’s Boston bombing, and has appealed to the public to help identify them. Both are young men, wearing baseball…
The rise in CCTV means many of us are under near constant observation, a trend that will only be exacerbated by the rise of drones.
Flickr/ogglog
In the late 1970s I found myself wandering the mostly deserted streets of East Berlin, having successfully negotiated Checkpoint Charlie and a horde of East German border guards. I remember commenting…