Media Releases

Australia to face human rights scrutiny in week of UN Human Rights Council vote

Posted on October 16, 2017 | in Media releases

During the same week that Australia is expected to be granted a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, an expert UN Committee will grill the Australian Government over its own human rights record.

Comprehensive national face database incompatible with a free society

Posted on October 6, 2017 | in Media releases

Australia’s leading privacy and civil liberties organisations condemn the decision by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) to provide all images from state and territory driver’s licence databases to the federal National Facial Biometric Matching Capability.

Attorney General George Brandis declared "Villain" by Access Now for comments undermining encryption

Posted on October 5, 2017 | in Media releases , News

Today, Access Now recognized Australian Attorney General George Brandis as a Villain among the annual Heroes and Villains Award recipients for his comments in opposition to strong digital security tools like encryption. As a leading official representing Australia in the notorious “Five Eyes” partnership, Attorney General Brandis has pushed publicly for requirements for companies to implement measures to allow law enforcement to bypass encryption protections for exceptional access to digital content. This type of access has been repeatedly demonstrated to undermine digital security globally, including and especially for the users in marginalized communities.

Concerns over proposed plan for national facial recognition database

Posted on October 4, 2017 | in Media releases

Digital Rights Watch has expressed deep concerns over proposed plans that would require drivers license photographs to be included in a national facial recognition database.

Cross-border access to data: Council of Europe submission

Posted on September 18, 2017 | in Media releases , Reports

Today, 18 September 2017, a global coalition of civil society organisations, led by European Digital Rights (EDRi) and including Digital Rights Watch, submitted to the Council of Europe its comments on how protect human rights when developing new rules on cross-border access to electronic evidence (“e-evidence”). The Council of Europe is currently preparing an additional protocol to the Cybercrime Convention.

Intelligence sharing a threat to democracy: privacy and human rights organisations launch international campaign

Posted on September 14, 2017 | in Media releases

The Australian Government must ensure transparency of its intelligence sharing with other countries in order to safeguard Australian citizens’ private information, a coalition of privacy and human rights organisations said at the launch of a new campaign.