Privacy International - Campaigns, Networking and Research

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 organisations to raise awareness about the development of national surveillance systems. In more recent times the organisation has shifted much of its focus to issues concerning the EU and the United States and has adopted a more aggressive program of legal action.

Since the late 1990s the organization's campaigns, media activity 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 testing.

The PI network has also been used by law reform and human rights organisations 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 organisations, 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 organisation is relatively small, comprising three full-time staff, part-time research support and a number of volunteers and interns. However this small team is supported in its project work by a collaborative network of around a hundred organisations 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 (US), Statewatch (UK), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (US), the European Digital Rights Initiative, Consumers International, the Foundation for Information Policy Research (UK), Liberty (UK), the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, the Moscow Human Rights Network, Amnesty International, Privacy Ukraine, Quintessenz (Austria), Human Rights Watch, Bits of Freedom (Netherlands), freedominfo.org, Index on Censorship, the Association for Progressive Communications, the Global Internet Liberty Campaign, Charter 88 (UK), the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates and the Thai Civil Liberties Union.