International Privacy & Human Rights Report

The Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International just released their most recent survey of global privacy trends.

Entitled Privacy and Human Rights 2005, the report describes the situation in 70 countries around the world, describing legal protections for privacy as well as events relating to privacy and surveillance.

"Each country report covers the constitutional, legal and regulatory framework protecting privacy and the surveillance of communications by law enforcement, new landmark court cases, most noteworthy advocacy work of non-governmental organizations and human rights groups, various new developments, and major news stories related to privacy."

The authors note a number of trends such as:

• stricter controls to ensure the identification of people crossing country borders
• increased surveillance powers and sharing of intelligence information among government agencies
• growing government interest in surveillance technologies like biometrics, smart cards, medical information databases, data mining and video surveillance
• the rapid growth in private sector surveillance

The report does draw attention to the successful opposition by civil liberties groups and NGOs to privacy intrusions in various countries as well as the adoption of freedom of information and privacy protection measures in others.

Also see:

• List of Electronic Surveillance Laws in the U.S. (December 22, 2005)
• Canadian Bar Association Worried About ISP Surveillance (July 8, 2006)
• Update on Canadian Internet Surveillance Proposals (October 30, 2006)
• UK Fast Becoming Surveillance Society Says Info Commissioner (November 2, 2006)