Big Brother Watch

Big Brother Watch is a non-profit non-party British civil liberties and privacy campaigning organisation.[1] It was founded in 2009 to campaign against state surveillance and threats to civil liberties.[2]

Big Brother Watch
Formation2009
TypeNon-profit campaign organisation
Location
  • Westminster
Websitebigbrotherwatch.org.uk

The organisation campaigns on a variety of issues including: the rise of the surveillance state, police use of oppressive technology,[3][4] freedom and privacy online, the use of intrusive communications interception powers including the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act,[5][6] and the Investigatory Powers Act,[7] the protection of personal information and wider data protection issues.

The organisation is headquartered in the China Works building, Vauxhall, London.[8][9]

The name "Big Brother Watch" originates from George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949.

Founding

The group was established in late 2009 and the official launch took place in January 2010 with Tony Benn and David Davis as guest speakers.[10] Silkie Carlo is the Director.[11][12][13]

The founder, Matthew Elliott, also founded Eurosceptic think tank Business for Britain as well as Conservative Friends of Russia, Taxpayers Alliance, the NOtoAV campaign in the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum and in 2015, Elliot became the chief executive of Vote Leave.

Reports and campaigns

The organisation has campaigned against police retention of innocent people's custody images[14] (also known as mugshots) and police use of facial recognition technology.[15] In 2018 they supported a debate in the House of Lords which noted the intrusive nature of this technology, the lack of a legal basis or parliamentary scrutiny, and the possibility that it may be incompatible with Article 8 right to privacy under the ECHR.[16] In July 2018, the organisation brought a legal challenge against the Metropolitan Police Service and the Secretary of State for the Home Department.[17]

Big Brother Watch has also campaigned to protect victims of crime from 'digital strip searches' of their mobile phones by police, especially victims of sexual violence.[18][19][20] They campaigned alongside other rights and justice groups including End Violence Against Women, Rape Crisis England and Wales and the Centre for Women's Justice.[21]

In 2019, Big Brother Watch investigated and succeeded in getting HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to delete over 5 million people's voice biometrics, which had been collected without people's consent or knowledge, in breach of data protection laws, from a HMRC database.[22] It is believed to be the biggest ever deletion of biometric IDs from a state-held database.[23]

In 2017, Big Brother Watch took a case against the United Kingdom, together with Open Rights Group and English PEN, to the European Court of Human Rights arguing that UK surveillance laws infringed UK citizens' right to privacy.[5]

Big Brother Watch was part of the anti-surveillance coalition Don't Spy On Us,[24] which campaigned against the proposed bulk communications collection powers and lack of judicial safeguards in the Investigatory Powers Bill, now Investigatory Powers Act, in 2015 and 2016.[25]

The organisation has published reports investigating police access to people's personal mobile phone information,[26][27] police use of body worn cameras,[28] surveillance technology in schools[29] and the use of outdated communications laws to prosecute internet speech.[30][31]

In 2012, Big Brother Watch shut down its website in protest at the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act proposed United States legislation, warning that similar plans may be proposed in the UK.[32] It has carried out investigations into local authority data handling, finding more than 1000 incidents in which councils lost information about children and those in care.[33]

Board

References
  1. Ashford, Warwick (November 14, 2014). "Big Brother Watch calls for better NHS data security in light of losses". Computer Weekly. TechTarget. Retrieved 9 Dec 2019. Civil liberties pressure group Big Brother Watch has called for better health data security after a study revealed the NHS has suffered an average of six data breaches a day for the past three years.
  2. About at the Wayback Machine (archived July 7, 2014) The archived link is live; however, the current version (9 Dec 2019) lacks information on when the organisation was founded.
  3. Martin, Alexander J.; Cheshire, Tom (August 23, 2017). "Legal questions surround police use of facial recognition tech". Sky News. Sky UK. Retrieved 9 Dec 2019. Four years late on publishing its Biometrics Strategy, pressure mounts on the Government to introduce legal controls. (sub-title)
  4. Hamilton, Fiona (August 15, 2017). "Body cameras for police have little impact on crime". The Times. England: Times Newspapers Limited. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 9 Dec 2019.
  5. Bowcott, Owen (November 7, 2017). "UK intelligence agencies face surveillance claims in European court". The Guardian (US ed.). Guardian News & Media Limited. Retrieved 9 Dec 2019.
  6. Gallagher, Ryan (November 7, 2017). "European Court to Decide Whether U.K. Mass Surveillance Revealed by Snowden Violates Human Rights". The Intercept. First Look Media. Retrieved 9 Dec 2019.
  7. MacAskill, Ewen (November 19, 2016). "'Extreme surveillance' becomes UK law with barely a whimper". The Guardian. England: Guardian News & Media Limited. Retrieved 9 Dec 2019.
  8. "Contact". Big Brother Watch. Retrieved 9 Dec 2019.
  9. "Way: China Works, Southbank House (170386156)". OpenStreetMap. November 20, 2018. Retrieved 9 Dec 2019.
  10. David Davis - and Tony Benn - speak at the launch of Big Brother Watch http://playpolitical.typepad.com/uk_conservative/2010/01/david-davis-and-tony-benn-speak-at-the-launch-of-big-brother-watch.html (registration required)
  11. "About us". bigbrotherwatch.org.uk.
  12. "New Big Brother Watch Team announced". bigbrotherwatch.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  13. "Big Brother Watch has a new Director". bigbrotherwatch.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  14. "Cops' use of biometric images 'gone far beyond custody purposes'". Retrieved 2018-03-26.
  15. "The quiet and creeping normalisation of facial recognition technology". newstatesman.com. Retrieved 2018-03-26.
  16. "Security and Policing: Facial Recognition Technology - Hansard Online". hansard.parliament.uk. Retrieved 2018-03-26.
  17. Portal, Gaetan (2018-07-25). "Facial recognition faces legal challenge". Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  18. "'Rape cases dropped' over police phone searches". 2019-07-23. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  19. "'Rape cases dropped' over police phone searches". 2019-07-23. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  20. Ferris, Harriet Wistrich and Griff (2019-08-05). "Victims of sexual violence should not be subjected to digital strip search". ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  21. correspondent, Owen Bowcott Legal affairs (2019-07-22). "Police demands for access to rape victims' phones 'unlawful'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  22. Peachey, Kevin (2019-05-03). "HMRC deletes five million voice files". Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  23. "Big Brother Watch response: HMRC forced to delete 5 million voice IDs – Big Brother Watch". Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  24. "Don't Spy on Us". Don’t Spy on Us. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  25. "The posters the Home Office doesn't want you to see". The Independent. 2016-05-10. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  26. "71% of UK police forces refuse to provide data on digital evidence gathering – Big Brother Watch". bigbrotherwatch.org.uk. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  27. "Brit cops slammed for failing to give answers on digital device data slurpage". Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  28. "Privacy campaigners urge proof of body-worn camera footage benefits". Mail Online. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  29. Pickles, Nick; Benbow, Stephanie (2012-09-12). "Is the use of CCTV cameras in schools out of hand? | Nick Pickles and Stephanie Benbow". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  30. "Careless Whispers: How speech is policed by outdated communications legislation – Big Brother Watch". bigbrotherwatch.org.uk. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  31. "Twitter joke trial law is being used to win easy convictions and must". The Independent. 2015-02-19. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  32. Pickles, Nick (January 19, 2012). "Internet regulation could become McCarthy witch hunt". Archived from the original on June 5, 2013.
  33. "Local Authority Data Loss" (PDF). Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  34. "BIG BROTHER WATCH LIMITED - Overview (free company information from Companies House)". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
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