Privacy International

Privacy International   (Charity)
Formation	1990
Headquarters	London, UK
Leader	Privacy International/Executive director‎
Interests	privacy, universal surveillance
Sponsored by	Adessium Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union, European Commission, German Marshall Fund, Omidyar Network, Open Society Foundations
Subpage	•Privacy International/Executive director
Privacy activists with extensive funding from foundations close to deep state interests

Privacy International is a UK-based registered charity that defends and promotes the right to privacy across the world.

Funding

The funding from a large number of deep state foundations shows that the subject of privacy might not regarded as a real threat to the deep state, possibly because it focuses on individual, legalistic rights over (collective) economic action. Funding objectives might be to make sure Privacy International doesn't probe to deeply and stays within acceptable limits; that the means and objectives is regarded as acceptable, non-threatening opposition (and futile, since Western secret services can access most everything they want anyway); or that the focus on privacy is a convenient, selective foreign policy tool against non-absorbed states.

Privacy International has been funded and supported by a variety of foundations, academic establishments, and non-government organizations, including the Adessium Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the International Research Development Centre, the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the University of Toronto's Canada Centre for Global Security Studies in the Munk School of Global Affairs, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, The Fund for Constitutional Government, the Stern Foundation, the Privacy Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, the University of New South Wales, the German Permanent Mission to the UN, the Oak Foundation, the Renewable Freedom Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the Roughley Charitable Trust, the Swedish International Development Agency, and the Street Foundation.

Organization

The NGO has twenty full-time staff and a number of volunteers and interns. The core team is supported in its project work by a collaborative network of around a hundred organizations 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), European Digital Rights, 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, Charter88 (UK), the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates, and the Thai Civil Liberties Union.

Activities

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. From 2001 to 2010, the organization shifted much of its focus to issues concerning the EU and the United States. From 2011 onward, activities expanded to include a more aggressive program of legal action and international advocacy, particularly in the global south.

Since the late 1990s, the organization's campaigns, media activities 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 profiling.

Privacy International partnered with Reprieve to bring a lawsuit against the UK government in connection with MI5 operatives' express right to disobey UK laws. As a result of this victory, the UK government published an annex of the 2016 Investigatory Powers Act about criminal activity by employees of MI5.

Illegal surveillance by MI5

In 2018, it emerged that MI5 unlawfully tapped Privacy International's communications.

 

Sponsors

Event	Description
Adessium Foundation	A secretive Dutch foundation that donates to projects backed by Western governments.
American Civil Liberties Union
European Commission	The executive body of the European Union, responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the EU treaties and managing day-to-day business.
German Marshall Fund	According to whistleblower Udo Ulfkotte, a CIA front group. Despite the 'German' in its name, it is a fully US/CIA-controlled operation, mainly to maintain a network of transatlantic European politicians and journalists. Hugely influential behind the scenes.
Omidyar Network	Foundation owned by the the deep state-connected billionaire Pierre Omidyar, financing preferred NGOs
Open Society Foundations	A NGO operating in more countries than McDonald's. It has the tendency to support politicians (at times through astroturfing) and activists that get branded as "extreme left" as its founder is billionaire and bane of the pound George Soros. This polarizing perspective causes the abnormal influence of the OSF to go somewhat unanswered.

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