European metadata retention: news from the EU court
An analysis of the AG’s opinion on data retention and access to metadata at the court in Luxembourg.
Fresh, fair, and smart: data reliability in predictive policing
The concerns of "dirty data" in data-driven policing.
Years of MI5 lawbreaking expose failure of UK surveillance safeguards
The only thing worse than secret services with sweeping surveillance powers is secret services with sweeping surveillance powers that are left unchecked by a toothless oversight system.
A search for common ground: export controls on surveillance technology and the role of the EU
On the recent past & possible future of regulatory efforts aimed at preventing autocratic repression “Made in the EU”.
Public engagement is key for robust intelligence oversight
How conferring with civil society reference groups can help intelligence oversight bodies do their job.
Update pending: intelligence oversight needs oversight intelligence
Seven ideas for how to close the gap between high-tech intelligence and low-tech oversight.
Sitting on the steel fence: my dialogue with the intelligence world
Digital evidence expert and public policy analyst Peter Sommer looks back at nearly three decades working as an intermediary between the public and the secret world.
Another layer of opacity: how spies use AI and why we should talk about it
Thanks to the AI hype, for perhaps the first time ever, the wider public might get to monitor and address technological & operational transformation in Signals Intelligence as it unfolds.
Austrian government’s hacking law ruled unconstitutional
Why the Constitutional Court of Austria scrapped government spyware & street surveillance.
Casual attitude in intelligence sharing is troubling
The Dutch secret services share data with foreign services far too easily. Better legal and internal safeguards are essential.
Bridge of trust
How the Norwegian oversight body mediates between the intelligence services and the public.
Hardwired bias: how data-driven policing exacerbates racial discrimination
New report by the European Network Against Racism shows ostensibly neutral police tools could disproportionately impact and further disadvantage racialised communities.
Predictive policing: positivism is not enough to rule our complex world
The key concern with artificial intelligence is not (only) its potency but its inability to seek justice.
A simple yet existential demand: let oversight bodies work together
A veteran’s perspective on European intelligence oversight: where it’s been, where it’s going, and why we need to internationalise it.
Augmentation as artifice: a Palantir look at AI
How the big data analytics company focuses on supporting rather than displacing human decision-making.
FRAgile liberty: why we brought Sweden before the Strasbourg court
One of the counsels for the applicant in Centrum för Rättvisa v. Sweden at the European Court of Human Rights explains the case against the Swedish bulk collection regime and what the pending judgment means for civil liberties in the digital age for all of Europe.
GCHQ embraces AI, but not as a black box
AI can augment human creativity and help keep societies safe, but only if issues of bias and transparency are adequately addressed.
A healthy thing for democracy: how my office engages with civil society
The former Inspector-General of Intelligence & Security of New Zealand on her experience with setting up a civil society focus group.
Enhance & internationalise the oversight mandate
Intelligence oversight needs stronger regulatory support to effectively monitor increasingly international intelligence practice.
Why we’re launching about:intel
Editors-in-Chief Thorsten Wetzling and Eric Kind explain why we started about:intel and what we are trying to achieve with it.