MAJOR INVESTIGATIONS
Poverty Panopticon
The Hidden Algorithms Shaping Britain’s Welfare State
Nine-month investigation into the secret algorithms & computer tools governing the lives of millions of Britons who use the welfare state.
Key findings include:
- Xantura, a data company, use age & other factors to model Housing Benefit claimants’ fraud risk.
- 1.6 million social tenants are secretly analysed by a tool that predicts if they will pay their rent.
- For-profit data science companies are contracted by local authorities to predict a person’s risk of homelessness, financial vulnerability and child abuse.
Ministry of Truth
The Secretive Government Units Spying On Your Speech
Agenda-setting exposé uncovering political surveillance by the Counter Disinformation Unit, Rapid Response Unit & 77th Brigade. Made innovative use of Subject Access Requests to overcome Whitehall secrecy;
Key findings include:
- Politicians, journalists and activists critical of the government were monitored online.
- The Army’s 77th Brigade collated tweets from Brits for the Cabinet Office, despite Army bosses promising soliders were not surveilling British citizens.
- Whitehall units orchestrated attacks on the press, manipulated search engine results and even paid influencers to spread government messaging.
Who’s Watching You
The dominance of Chinese state-owned CCTV in the UK
Investigation into the prevalance of Hikvision and Dahua in the UK, based on 4,000+ Freedom of Information Requests.;
Key findings include:
- 60 per cent of public bodies have CCTV made by Chinese state-owned companies .
- This includes 3 in 5 schools and 2/3 of local councils.
- Police forces, hospitals and even government departments use China-linked CCTV equipment.
The Streets Are Watching
How Billboards Are Spying On You
Exposé of the surveillance-powered billboards taking over the high street, based on coporate and digital investigation.;
Key findings include:
- Millions of UK phones are tracked to help ad tech companies build detailed maps of what kinds of people are in which places and when.
- Brands buy this data and target their adverts by the hour at the billboards their audiences walk past.
- These models rely on trackers in mobile phone apps, where consent is often shaky or non existent.
- It is even possible for phones to be re-targeted with ads on billboards they’ve walked past, and billboards programmed to groups smaller than 100 people.
Access Denied
The Case Against a Two-Tier Britain Under Covid Certification
Co-authored report with Big Brother Watch Director Silkie Carlo into the mechanics of introducing Covid Passes & the ethical and human rights issues posed by the domestic use of health certification in Britain.
Lead on the technical analysis of different Covid Pass options from basic proof of test concepts to blockchain-based verifiable credentials and official ID-linked systems. Examined the privacy risks, companies involved and practicalities of a number of certificates given government funding.
STORIES PLACED IN THE PRESS
Tesco is ‘taking advantage’ of struggling shoppers with lower prices for Clubcard members, campaigners say
“Certain supermarket loyalty programmes are taking advantage of the cost of living crisis by allowing only those who hand over large amounts of personal data to avail of steep discounts, campaigners say.…
“An analysis of privacy policies used by the UK’s two largest supermarket chains, Tesco and Sainsbury’s, has uncovered “disturbing” uses for shopper data buried in the smallprint.“
Met police illegally filmed children as young as 10 at climate protest, The Guardian, December 2022
Police unlawfully spied on children as young as 10 taking part in a climate strike protest in London, documents have shown. The previously unseen papers reveal the Metropolitan police were rebuked by the information commissioner’s office (ICO) for video surveillance of the March 2019 protest, which was attended by up to 10,000 children and young people…
Chinese tech firms Hikvision and Dahua can see UK business crime data, The Times, December 2022
Chinese-owned technology companies are being given privileged access to UK business crime data including hotspot trends and research, leading to concerns from privacy groups. Hikvision and Dahua’s associate membership of the National Business Crime Solution (NBCS), a chief constable-backed initiative that shares sensitive information with businesses, also gives them access to “senior decision makers at some of the nation’s most prestigious organisations”…
Chinese security firm advertises ethnicity recognition technology while facing UK ban, The Guardian, December 2022
A Chinese security camera company has been advertising ethnicity recognition features to British and other European customers, even while it faces a ban on UK operations over allegations of involvement in ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang.
Police abuse stop and search powers to target protesters, suggests data, The Guardian, August 2022
Stop and searches in central London increase by more than a fifth on weekends when protests take place, according to civil liberties campaigners who say police are misusing the tactic to deliberately target demonstrators.
Except in special circumstances, stop and search can be used only for a handful of specific reasons, mostly covering drugs, weapons and stolen goods, suggesting, according to activists, that police are stretching the limits of their powers…
Grandparents could use Covid passport app to screen birthday party guests, Daily Telegraph, April 2021
Grandparents will be able to scan Covid passport apps before allowing family members into their birthday parties or gatherings under plans drawn up by a company developing a coronavirus passport app for the Government.
Anyone planning an event or party, in their own home or at a hired-out venue, will be handed the ability to stop them becoming superspreading events by scanning codes on guests’ phones, which will grant access if they are vaccinated, have a recent negative test or antibodies from recent infection.
The app will also be used by major events under plans that could see fans sit in different parts of sports stadiums according to their Covid status, according to Netcompany which has been handed a £3million contract to develop Covid certificates.
The Covid data spies paid to know ALL your secrets: Town halls harvest millions of highly personal details including if you’re being unfaithful or having unsafe sex, Daily Mail, November 2020
Town halls are harvesting millions of highly personal details about residents using Covid software, the Daily Mail can reveal today. A private firm has signed lucrative deals with local authorities to garner the data which can be used to predict who is likely to break lockdown.
The information is culled from council records and includes family debt levels, living arrangements, income, school absences and exclusions. It is fed into a profiling system called Covid OneView to create a risk analysis for households and individuals who are believed to be vulnerable.
OPINION PIECES
We must end our reliance on Chinese CCTV cameras
Despite being linked to heinous programmes in China, these cameras are somehow allowed to be used on our streets and in our schools.
Chinese CCTV is coming to a town near you.
How a police and council database is predicting if your child is at risk of harm.
Analysis in the Bristol Cable about Bristol City Council’s use of advanced predictive analytics to predict children’s risk of sexual & criminal exploitation, or being out of education & employment, based on a massive database. At least 170,000 Bristolians (estimated to cover 3 in 5 families) have something about them on the system, which covers 40 different social issues from poverty to health and school exclusion and even buys in data from Experian.
The Covid data spies paid to know ALL your secrets: Town halls harvest millions of highly personal details including if you’re being unfaithful or having unsafe sex
Research given to the Daily Mail uncovering the use of creepy predictive analytics around the economic and social effects of coronavirus by local authorities. Big Brother Watch found that the dystopian Xantura-made system claimed it could use citizen’s sexual history, anger management issues and their children’s behaviour at school to predict who was most at risk of the economic and social effects of the pandemic.
DWP leaves 1000s of people’s personal data online for two years
Investigation given to the Daily Mirror that found the Department of Work and Pensions published thousands of peoples’s National Insurance numbers, linked them to personal independence payment assessments and left them online for more than two years.
