Dear all
we are working with other NGOs, calling for organisations and individuals to sign to the following statement, with a view to start ongoing pressure to demand a stop on password demands at the UK border.
Please forward it on to people you think may be able to sign. We’d like to get it published by the end of the week. Apologies for the short notice.
Best, Javier
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We, the undersigned, professionals, experts and practitioners in privacy and human rights have observed that:
1) Mobile phones and digital devices today hold all of our personal information, from intimate family photos to confidential work documents. Most of our lives are documented digitally in some form. Our passwords are the keys that unlock our digital lives and provide us with some privacy.
2) Recently there has been a growing international trend of authorities demanding passwords at borders and forcibly gaining access to devices. A coalition of human rights organisations in the US have launched the “Fly don’t spy” campaign in order to ensure travellers are not forced to disclose their passwords without reason.
3) In the UK, each year over 30,000 people are held without suspicion at borders, many threatened with imprisonment if they do not reveal the passwords to their phones, tablets and laptops. Their devices are then copied and analysed. This is effectively unaccountable surveillance of British citizens, circumventing investigatory powers legislation. Moreover, 80% of those stopped are from an ethnic minority suggesting the power may be applied in a discriminatory manner.
We are concerned with these developments and believe that:
4) People should not have to choose between maintaining their right to privacy or their right to travel, they should be allowed to have both. This is especially true for journalists and human rights defenders who have a duty to protect their sources.
5) No one should be forced to disclose their passwords without a warrant based on specific suspicion and basic standards of evidence. No one should be imprisoned for refusing to disclose it.
6) Thousands are already affected. The powers to compel password disclosure at the border are open to abuse - infringing on the rights of individuals to privacy, free speech and association - and should be removed.
END