Big Brother Watch

Founding

The group was established in August 2009 as a Private Limited Company owned by Mark Littlewood and Lord Strasburger and the official launch took place in January 2010 with Tony Benn and David Davis as guest speakers.

Reports and campaigns

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.

Big Brother Watch was part of the anti-surveillance coalition Don't Spy On Us, 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.

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 British surveillance laws infringed British citizens' right to privacy.

In 2017 and 2018, the organisation campaigned against police retention of innocent people's custody images (also known as mugshots) and police use of facial recognition technology. 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. In July 2018, the organisation brought a legal challenge against the Metropolitan Police Service and the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

In 2019, 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. 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.

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. Big Brother Watch believed this to be the biggest ever deletion of biometric IDs from a British government database.

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personal mobile phone information, police use of body worn cameras, surveillance technology in schools and the use of outdated communications laws to prosecute internet speech.

A 2011 BBW report into local authority data handling found that here had been more than 1000 incidents in which councils lost information about children and those in care.

Board

• Paul Strasburger, Baron Strasburger
• Dinah Rose KC
• Mark Littlewood
• Al Ghaff
• Tim Knox

References

References

1. Ashford, Warwick. (November 14, 2014). "Big Brother Watch calls for better NHS data security in light of losses". TechTarget.
2. "Alex Deane {{!}} Senior Managing Director {{!}} FTI Consulting".
3. (May 2021). "About".
4. Cunliffe, Rachel. (2021-04-19). "Big Brother Watch's Silkie Carlo: "The rule of law has broken down"".
5. "About us".
6. "New Big Brother Watch Team announced".
7. (August 23, 2017). "Legal questions surround police use of facial recognition tech". Sky UK.
8. Hamilton, Fiona. (August 15, 2017). "Body cameras for police have little impact on crime". Times Newspapers Limited.
9. Bowcott, Owen. (November 7, 2017). "UK intelligence agencies face surveillance claims in European court". Guardian News & Media Limited.
10. Gallagher, Ryan. (November 7, 2017). "European Court to Decide Whether U.K. Mass Surveillance Revealed by Snowden Violates Human Rights". First Look Media.
11. MacAskill, Ewen. (November 19, 2016). "'Extreme surveillance' becomes UK law with barely a whimper". Guardian News & Media Limited.
12. "Contact". Big Brother Watch.
13. (November 20, 2018). "Way: China Works, Southbank House (170386156)".
14. "BIG BROTHER WATCH LIMITED overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK".
15. Pickles, Nick. (January 19, 2012). "Internet regulation could become McCarthy witch hunt".
16. "Don't Spy on Us".
17. (2016-05-10). "The posters the Home Office doesn't want you to see". The Independent.
18. (13 September 2017). "Cops' use of biometric images 'gone far beyond custody purposes'".
19. (1 February 2018). "The quiet and creeping normalisation of facial recognition technology".
20. "Security and Policing: Facial Recognition Technology - Hansard Online".
21. Portal, Gaetan. (2018-07-25). "Facial recognition faces legal challenge".
22. (2019-07-23). "'Rape cases dropped' over police phone searches".
23. Ferris, Harriet Wistrich and Griff. (2019-08-05). "Victims of sexual violence should not be subjected to digital strip search". [[The Times]].
24. correspondent, Owen Bowcott Legal affairs. (2019-07-22). "Police demands for access to rape victims' phones 'unlawful'". The Guardian.
25. Peachey, Kevin. (2019-05-03). "HMRC deletes five million voice files".
26. "Big Brother Watch response: HMRC forced to delete 5 million voice IDs – Big Brother Watch".
27. "71% of UK police forces refuse to provide data on digital evidence gathering – Big Brother Watch".
28. "Brit cops slammed for failing to give answers on digital device data slurpage".
29. "Privacy campaigners urge proof of body-worn camera footage benefits". [[Belfast Telegraph]].
30. (2012-09-12). "Is the use of CCTV cameras in schools out of hand? {{!}} Nick Pickles and Stephanie Benbow".
31. "Careless Whispers: How speech is policed by outdated communications legislation – Big Brother Watch".
32. (2015-02-19). "Twitter joke trial law is being used to win easy convictions and must". The Independent.
33. "Local Authority Data Loss".
34. "BIG BROTHER WATCH LIMITED - Overview (free company information from Companies House)".