Search Results for: domestic surveillance

Since the attacks on the Capitol on January 6th, calls both for and against expanded domestic terrorism authorities have proliferated. Proponents argue that we have allowed bias and blindness to open us to a steadily expanding domestic terror threat and that we need the capabilities provided in the international context. Opponents have pointed out that [...]

This article is written in view of the recent Reply (GJ/63/2020) made by the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China in Geneva in pursuance of a Joint Communication (AL CHN 16/2020). The Joint Communication was made by a number of Special Rapporteurs and Working Groups in the United Nations in August 2020 in [...]

Freedom House, a human rights watchdog group, released a report on internet freedom in the COVID-19 pandemic Wednesday criticizing government internet freedom violations since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report outlined three recent, prevailing issues over internet freedom: Three notable trends punctuated an especially dismal year for internet freedom. First, political leaders used [...]

The global chaos created by COVID-19 has proven to be a stress test for modern governance. The pandemic and its fallout have proven especially revealing in the context of European data policy, which is governed by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), promulgated in May of 2018. But, COVID-19 has exposed its fault lines. While [...]

The Indian Government took the global media by storm when it announced a ban on 59 Chinese apps in India to counter the threat posed by these applications to the country’s “sovereignty and security”. The ban has been imposed under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, and justifying its move the government cited the [...]

In 2007, Hungary ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), a wide-ranging and forward-thinking treaty designed to advance the human rights of those with disabilities. This reflected on the international level what Hungary seemed to be doing on the national level. The year before, Hungary adopted a new National Disability Programme [...]

The US Air Force announced on Thursday that their inspector general would be opening an investigation into whether reconnaissance aircraft had been improperly deployed to surveil protests in Washington D.C. and Minneapolis earlier this month. The New York Times reports that it has seen messages indicating that on the morning of June 2 the West [...]

One of the focal points of the government health response to COVID-19 in India has been the extensive use of mobile phone applications such as the Aarogya Setu for contact tracing and quarantine. The applications have already been subject to widespread criticism for insufficient protection of user data. Notwithstanding the role of mobile phone applications, [...]

“The greatest nations are defined by how they treat their weakest inhabitants.” -Jorge Ramos The COVID-19 outbreak has caused an upsurge in humanitarian crises, affecting millions of refugees across the globe. In these unprecedented times, the rights of the refugees are most vulnerable. Refugees are the forgotten ones, with the least access to essentials required [...]

The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, which is a data privacy code, similar to the GDPR in the EU, has recently been passed by the Union Cabinet, and has been presented before the Lok Sabha for determination of enactment. In light of this, I seek to specifically analyze the important provision pertaining to data localization [...]