Privacy International


Privacy International is a UK-based registered charity that defends and promotes the right to privacy across the world. First formed in 1990, registered as a non-profit company in 2002 and as a charity in 2012, PI is based in London. Its current executive director, since 2012, is Dr Gus Hosein.

Formation, background and objectives

During 1990, in response to increasing awareness about the globalization of surveillance, more than a hundred privacy experts and human rights organizations from forty countries took steps to form an international organization for the protection of privacy.
Members of the new body, including computer professionals, academics, lawyers, journalists, jurists, and activists, had a common interest in promoting an international understanding of the importance of privacy and data protection. Meetings of the group, which took the name Privacy International, were held throughout that year in North America, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific, and members agreed to work toward the establishment of new forms of privacy advocacy at the international level. The initiative was convened and personally funded by British privacy activist Simon Davies who served as director of the organization until June 2012.
At the time, privacy advocacy within the non-government sector was fragmented and regionalized, while at the regulatory level there was little communication between privacy officials outside the European Union. Awareness of privacy issues at the international level was generated primarily through academic publications and international news reports but privacy campaigning at an international level until that time had not been feasible.
While there had for some years existed an annual international meeting of privacy regulators, the formation of Privacy International was the first successful attempt to establish a global focus on this emerging area of human rights. PI evolved as an independent, non-government network with the primary role of advocacy and support, but largely failed in its first decade to become a major international player. Most of its early campaigns were focused on Southeast Asia.
From 2011, Privacy International began to formalize and condense its operations. It is now a UK-registered charity with twenty full-time members of staff and an office in Central London. As part of restructuring, an informal advisory board was replaced in 2012 by a managing 9 member board of trustees, including investigative journalist Heather Brooke and technologist Jerry Fishenden. The restructuring also established three major program areas: contesting surveillance, challenging data exploitation, and building a global privacy movement.
Privacy International's Articles of Association state that the charity's objective is to promote the human right of privacy throughout the world, as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent United Nations conventions and declarations; specifically:
  • To raise awareness of, to conduct research about, and to provide educational materials regarding threats to personal privacy;
  • To monitor and report on surveillance methods and tactics employed against individuals and groups;
  • To work at national and international levels toward the provision of strong and effective privacy protections;
  • To monitor the nature, effectiveness and extent of measures to protect privacy, and to seek ways through information technology to protect personal information;
  • To seek ways through which information technology can be used in the protection of privacy.
Privacy International has been funded and supported by a variety of foundations, academic establishments, and non-government organizations, including the Adessium Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the International Research Development Centre, the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the University of Toronto's Canada Centre for Global Security Studies in the Munk School of Global Affairs, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, The Fund for Constitutional Government, the Stern Foundation, the Privacy Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, the University of New South Wales, the German Permanent Mission to the UN, the Oak Foundation, the Renewable Freedom Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the Roughley Charitable Trust, the Swedish International Development Agency, and the Street Foundation. It also receives a small amount of finance via contributions.

Campaigns, networking and research

Throughout the 1990s, Privacy International was active in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia, where it liaised with local human rights organizations to raise awareness about the development of national surveillance systems. From 2001 to 2010, the organization shifted much of its focus to issues concerning the EU and the United States. From 2011 onward, activities expanded to include a more aggressive program of legal action and international advocacy, particularly in the global south.
Since the late 1990s, the organization's campaigns, media activities and projects have focused on a wide spectrum of issues, including Internet privacy, international government cooperation, passenger name record transfers, data protection law, anti-terrorism developments, freedom of information, Internet censorship, identity systems, corporate governance, the appointment of privacy regulators, cross-border data flows, data retention, judicial process, government consultation procedures, information security, national security, cybercrime, and aspects of around a hundred technologies and technology applications ranging from video surveillance to DNA profiling.
The PI network has also been used by law reform and human rights organizations in more than forty countries to campaign on local privacy issues. In Thailand and the Philippines, for example, Privacy International worked with local human rights bodies to develop national campaigns against the establishment of government identity card systems. In Canada, New Zealand, the United States, Hungary, Australia, and the United Kingdom it has promoted privacy issues through national media and through public campaigns. In Central and Eastern Europe, PI has been active in promoting government accountability through Freedom of information legislation.
PI monitors the activities of international organizations, including the European Union, the Council of Europe, and United Nations agencies. It has conducted numerous studies and reports, and provides commentary and analysis of contemporary policy and technology issues.
The charity is relatively small, comprising twenty full-time staff and a number of volunteers and interns. However the core team is supported in its project work by a collaborative network of around a hundred organizations in the fields of civil liberties, academia, technology assessment and human rights. These include, or have included, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Australian Privacy Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Statewatch, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, European Digital Rights, Consumers International, the Foundation for Information Policy Research, Liberty, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, the Moscow Human Rights Network, Amnesty International, Privacy Ukraine, Quintessenz, Human Rights Watch, Bits of Freedom, freedominfo.org, Index on Censorship, the Association for Progressive Communications, the Global Internet Liberty Campaign, Charter88, the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates, and the Thai Civil Liberties Union.
PI also has partners in developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, under the auspices of the Global South Program. The partners are:
  1. Asociación por los Derechos Civiles, Argentina
  2. Coding Rights, Brazil
  3. Derechos Digitales, Chile
  4. The Center for Law, Justice and Society, Colombia
  5. Fundación Karisma, Colombia
  6. The Centre for Internet and Society , India
  7. The Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy, Indonesia
  8. The National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders Kenya, Kenya
  9. Digital Rights Foundation, Pakistan
  10. BytesForAll, Pakistan
  11. The Foundation for Media Alternatives, Philippines
  12. The Unwanted Witness, Uganda
  13. Privacy LatAm, Brazil
  14. The Right2Know Campaign, South Africa
  15. The Media Policy and Democracy Project, South Africa
  16. TEDIC, Paraguay
  17. Social Media Exchange, Lebanon
  18. Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales, Mexico

    Key activities

Legal actions

Privacy International's legal actions against governments and companies include the following cases:
  1. In the Matter of the Search of an Apple iPhone Seized during the Execution of a Search Warrant on a Black Lexus IS300, California License Plate 35KGD203, relating to the FBI's request to Apple to break the encryption on an iPhone
  2. Several actions before the UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal, and subsequently the Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights, against, among others, the UK Foreign Secretary and GCHQ, and also involving other parties, relating to the British security services' computer hacking and involvement in PRISM
  3. Complaints to the National Cyber Crime Unit and the OECD on behalf of Bahraini activists against British suppliers of malware to Bahraini authorities alleging that they were accessory to unlawful telephone and internet interception and breaching OECD guidance
  4. Complaint to the OECD about UK telecommunications companies' involvement in GCHQ spying
  5. R v Commissioner for HM Revenue and Customs, on whether HMRC is permitted or required to give third parties information about its decisions, in particular on their decisions whether to prosecute, in the context of export controls on malware sold to repressive regimes