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.
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.
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.
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.
Within the borders of China and Russia, the use of invasive information controls and techniques is well-known and widespread. But the use of these technology systems to suppress citizens’ fundamental human rights goes beyond what is happening inside any one country’s borders. Increasingly, authoritarian actors are exporting these tools and know-how to other countries, a new report finds.
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.
A unique collaboration between five international investigative teams and recently-formed Signals Network is offering unprecedented protection to whistleblowers, and has received the backing of famed NSA exposer Edward Snowden. Their first project? A broad call on the misuse of big data. A GIJN report by Rowan Philp.
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.
Journalists who work in authoritarian environments tend to be under electronic surveillance. Sometimes surveillance is being conducted at a mass scale — rather than directed at a specific target — and is intended to track what journalists in general are doing and what stories they are investigating. Here’s how to assess if surveillance is a potential or actual risk to privacy, personal safety, data security and the identities of sources.
In an explosive report, Citizen Lab and their Mexican civil society partners identified more than 75 text messages sent to the phones of 12 individuals, most of whom are journalists, lawyers and human rights defenders in an effort to monitor the target’s devices. They say the findings are a flagrant and disturbing example of the abuse of commercial spyware.
