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30/09/2026

Body-worn cams change people's "ability to feel at ease in public life".

ORG's Sarah Lasoye told the BBC that there are "lots of different parts of our private life that now are subject to intrusion."

We can't drift into a situation of roaming mass surveillance from high street to car park.

Enforcement officers in Hull say abuse and inappropriate behaviour has become their "normal".

29/09/2026

Live facial recognition. A waste of time. Waste of money. And, crucially, lays waste to our rights.

For the supposed golden goose of digital policing to spit out one (false positive) match is an indictment of this invasive tech.

Tech and surveillance aren't the solution to complex social problems.

Freedom of information request finds six-month trial cost £320,000, used almost 100 police hours and led to just one – incorrect – alert

28/09/2026

COMING UP: Cory Doctorow will be at the Green Party Conference Fringe this year.

Join us for this special event exploring 'Digital Sovereignty and the Post-American Internet: What the Greens can do to escape Big Tech'.

🗓️ Sat 3 October
🕠️ 5.45-6.45pm
📍 Brighton

Find out more ⬇️

What the Greens can do to escape Big Tech Trump has given every country the means, motive and opportunity to build a new, good Internet, free from the geopolitical imperatives America foisted on the planet for 25 years.

25/09/2026

🚨 ORG has been put on a watchlist 🚨

“It is deeply concerning to see the Prevent duty being used to enable the monitoring of people and organisations simply because they are critical of the programme. That raises serious questions about freedom of expression and the right to dissent and protest.”

We denounce the “troubling lack of transparency about what happens to the information gathered through this social media monitoring [by the Standards and Compliance Unit]: how long it is retained, who it is shared with, and ultimately what the government is using it for.”

We’re clear that “Prevent has expanded far beyond its stated aim of identifying people considered “vulnerable to radicalisation”, and has increasingly been used to justify extensive surveillance.”

Criticising the programme for its many faults shouldn’t lead to getting put on a database.

💬 Sarah Lasoye for ORG.

X and Reddit posts from unsuspecting Brits attacking the UK's anti-terror policy Prevent were added to a database of critical online comments, Metro can reveal.

23/09/2026

'Reports that Discord is being blocked by some ISPs in the Philippines are deeply concerning. Cutting people off from a communications platform is a sweeping response to concerns about harmful content. Measures to protect children should be targeted and proportionate, rather than disrupting lawful communications.

After the CICC threatened Discord and Reddit to set up a presence in the Philippines in 24 hours or else face consequences, accessing Discord has become dodgy. We can confirm that Discord is blocked on Globe, GOMO, and TNT networks, though it can be accessed on other networks like Smart and Converge...

17/09/2026

The EU Kids Act "changes the fundamental open nature of the internet and makes it a permission-based system where you are required to pass through an identity checkpoint to access information.

Imposing the same complex compliance requirements on [small] services risks pushing them out."

ORG's James Baker.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says technology platforms will have to prove they are safe before children can access them.

10/09/2026

Cover your bits, the government wants to put scanning tech on your phone.

The aim? To prevent kids receiving and sending n**es. But it'll be there as default for everyone, unless you go through age verification to disable it.

It's a disproportionate move that'll compromise privacy and security.

Nudity blocking works by scanning ALL your content. The privacy implications are huge. And the same goes for the alternative: having to submit your sensitive data in the form of ID uploads or biometric scans to verify you're over 18. Meanwhile, the age verification industry remains unregulated.

We can protect kids online without hard-coding surveillance into everyone’s device. An opt-in mechanism for parents and people who choose to use this tech is a more proportionate response. The focus should be on educational methods, and specialised policing of sextortion and child abuse offences.

Read more ⬇️

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/nudity-scanning-tech-will-leave-us-more-exposed/

The Government’s proposals to prevent under 18s from creating or sharing n**e images aim to address serious issues such as sextortion, grooming, and abuse.

07/09/2026

"The public is being kept in the dark about how systems affect them.

We urgently need AI regulation that puts transparency, accountability and the public interest first, protecting human rights and ensuring AI works for all of us."

ORG's Exec Director, Jim Killock.

Read about our new report ⬇️

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/artificial-intelligence-government-use-palantir-ai-b3043351.html

UK public sector has awarded more than 2,000 contracts for AI-related projects in past eight years, analysis found

03/09/2026

AI is seeping into the public sector. But at what cost?

Our new report finds that its adoption is opaque, unaccountable and for the benefit of Big Tech, not the public. This is a rallying cry for the Minister for AI to regulate public sector AI systems in accordance with human rights.

The report finds a damning list of risks from how AI is being developed, procured and deployed across the public sector.

🔴 Lack of scrutiny
🔴 Open to abuse from Big Tech lobbying
🔴 Lock-in to Big Tech contracts that stifle competition
🔴 Lack of transparency over policy
🔴 Lack of judicial oversight

Public spending on AI has ballooned. There are currently around 1,500 contract worth £3.35B. Claims that it'll drive efficiencies remain unproven. In the meantime the UK is tying itself to US companies like Palantir, Amazon, Google, OpenAI and Oracle with risks to our security and resilience.

There are no effective and coherent mandatory rules to ensure the AI systems that are being knitted into UK public services respect human rights.

The interests of Big Tech are being put first. While data protection, equality, and human rights are on the back-burner. We urgently need regulation.

“With the recent change in government, there is a new opportunity to align digital technology policy with human rights. The core of such a change should be human rights, lest the illusion of progress persist."

🗣️ Dr Richard Mackenzie-Gray Scott, author of the 'AI in the Public Sector' report.

Read more ⬇️

About the report The report finds that the UK’s adoption of AI is a key part of state strategy that appears to be principally motivated by improving economic performance and bolstering innovation.

27/08/2026

The government is trying yet again to ram a backdoor into Apple's encrypted products.

But you ask the UK public and over 90% say they should have a right to private conversations online.

New polling by the Center for Democracy & Technology makes it clear that attacks on encryption aren't backed by public opinion.

Shadowy attempts to break our right to privacy are completely rejected:

⚫️ Only 12% believe the government should be able to issue secret orders to gain access to private data.

⚫️ 87% believe there should be a legal obligation to tell people if their private conversations have been accessed.

Encryption keeps us safe and secure online. A backdoor is only possible by breaking encryption. And then anybody can abuse that cybersecurity weakness.

The government's last attempt to force Apple to build a backdoor into our accounts failed. We'll fight the latest order ➡️ https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaign/save-encryption/

Read more ⬇️

The public is wary of UK government surveillance powers that require technology companies to build ‘backdoors’ to access encrypted communications, according to a poll of 2,000 people in the UK by a Washington-based advocacy group.

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