Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://archive.gijn.org/tag/surveillance/page/3/)
The New York City Police Department has the ability to track people in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx by running images from 15,280 surveillance cameras into invasive and discriminatory facial recognition software, a new Amnesty International investigation reveals. Here’s how thousands of volunteers from around the world participated in the investigation.
Investigative reporters around the world are tightening their digital safety habits, out of concern that emergency pandemic laws, new spy technologies, and the lockdown itself have exposed journalists to even greater threats of surveillance and harassment. A dozen reporters and experts interviewed by GIJN agreed that sound digital hygiene was no longer optional for journalists in the COVID-19 world — and offered 10 security tips, including threat modelling, encrypted document transfer, and virtual burner phones.
The New York Times’ Privacy Project highlighted the alarmingly unregulated activity of location data companies collecting data from millions of smartphone users. As the coronavirus pandemic sheds further light on the uses and misuses of location tracking, here’s a deeper look at the project that visualized phones being tracked around the US, from the Pentagon and the White House to the streets of San Francisco.
অনলাইনে সাংবাদিকদের ওপর নজরদারি, হুমকি, এবং নিয়ন্ত্রণ আগেও ছিল। কিন্তু বিশেষজ্ঞরা বলছেন, কোভিডের কারণে রিপোর্টিংয়ে ডিজিটাল যোগাযোগ পদ্ধতির ব্যবহার বেড়ে যাওয়ায় এই ঝুঁকি আরো বেড়েছে। এখানে কয়েকটি উদাহরণ আছে, যেখান থেকে বোঝা যাবে নজরদারির প্রযুক্তি এখন কতটা অভিনব। আর জানা যাবে, এমন পরিস্থিতি থেকে সাংবাদিকরা নিজেদের কিভাবে নিরাপদ রাখবেন।
The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the way journalists work, not least because many authorities have cited the contagion as a reason to crack down on the news media. Certain dangers will subside with time but some of the measures put into place that restrict press freedom – whether intended or not — could continue well into the future.
There is a growing body of evidence that state spies have been targeting journalists in South Africa. Murray Hunter from the Right2Know Campaign, writes for GIJN about their recently released report which looks at 10 case studies of surveillance against journalists to unpack what happened, how it happened and which parties appear to be responsible.
What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 27 to February 2 finds The New York Times and Der Tagesspiegel tracking the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus, TED-Ed educating viewers about how graphs can be manipulated to mislead readers, and a baseball fan watching every Houston Astros home game in 2017 to log each time they banged a trash can as part of a sign-stealing scandal.
Reporters Sans Frontieres published, for the first time, a list of press freedom’s 20 worst digital predators in 2020. Whether state offshoots, private-sector companies, or informal entities, they reflect a reality of power at the end of the 21st century’s second decade, in which investigative reporters and other journalists who cause displeasure risk being the targets of predatory activity by often hidden actors.
Journalists for the Daily Trust in Nigeria told the Committee to Protect Journalists that the military conducted forensic searches on their computers and mobile phones following the publication of a story about a military operation. CPJ’s Jonathan Rozen writes that these raids are emblematic of a global trend of law enforcement seizing journalists’ phones and computers — some of their most important tools.
Despite concerns over government surveillance, a recent survey by the Pew Research Center of investigative journalists found that few have let those worries prevent them from pursuing a story or reaching out to a source. The survey also found a more pressing concern–decreasing newsroom resources.