Open Rights Group

Cover your bits, the government wants to put scanning tech on your phone.

The aim? To prevent kids receiving and sending n**es. But it'll be there as default for everyone, unless you go through age verification to disable it.

It's a disproportionate move that'll compromise privacy and security.

Nudity blocking works by scanning ALL your content. The privacy implications are huge. And the same goes for the alternative: having to submit your sensitive data in the form of ID uploads or biometric scans to verify you're over 18. Meanwhile, the age verification industry remains unregulated.

We can protect kids online without hard-coding surveillance into everyone’s device. An opt-in mechanism for parents and people who choose to use this tech is a more proportionate response. The focus should be on educational methods, and specialised policing of sextortion and child abuse offences.

Read more ⬇️

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/nudity-scanning-tech-will-leave-us-more-exposed/

Nudity scanning tech will leave us more exposed The Government’s proposals to prevent under 18s from creating or sharing n**e images aim to address serious issues such as sextortion, grooming, and abuse.

"The public is being kept in the dark about how systems affect them.

We urgently need AI regulation that puts transparency, accountability and the public interest first, protecting human rights and ensuring AI works for all of us."

ORG's Exec Director, Jim Killock.

Read about our new report ⬇️

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/artificial-intelligence-government-use-palantir-ai-b3043351.html

Warning UK ministers are putting interests of Big Tech ahead of public on AI UK public sector has awarded more than 2,000 contracts for AI-related projects in past eight years, analysis found

AI is seeping into the public sector. But at what cost?

Our new report finds that its adoption is opaque, unaccountable and for the benefit of Big Tech, not the public. This is a rallying cry for the Minister for AI to regulate public sector AI systems in accordance with human rights.

The report finds a damning list of risks from how AI is being developed, procured and deployed across the public sector.

🔴 Lack of scrutiny
🔴 Open to abuse from Big Tech lobbying
🔴 Lock-in to Big Tech contracts that stifle competition
🔴 Lack of transparency over policy
🔴 Lack of judicial oversight

Public spending on AI has ballooned. There are currently around 1,500 contract worth £3.35B. Claims that it'll drive efficiencies remain unproven. In the meantime the UK is tying itself to US companies like Palantir, Amazon, Google, OpenAI and Oracle with risks to our security and resilience.

There are no effective and coherent mandatory rules to ensure the AI systems that are being knitted into UK public services respect human rights.

The interests of Big Tech are being put first. While data protection, equality, and human rights are on the back-burner. We urgently need regulation.

“With the recent change in government, there is a new opportunity to align digital technology policy with human rights. The core of such a change should be human rights, lest the illusion of progress persist."

🗣️ Dr Richard Mackenzie-Gray Scott, author of the 'AI in the Public Sector' report.

Read more ⬇️

ORG and MPs call for public sector use of AI to be regulated About the report The report finds that the UK’s adoption of AI is a key part of state strategy that appears to be principally motivated by improving economic performance and bolstering innovation.

The government is trying yet again to ram a backdoor into Apple's encrypted products.

But you ask the UK public and over 90% say they should have a right to private conversations online.

New polling by the Center for Democracy & Technology makes it clear that attacks on encryption aren't backed by public opinion.

Shadowy attempts to break our right to privacy are completely rejected:

⚫️ Only 12% believe the government should be able to issue secret orders to gain access to private data.

⚫️ 87% believe there should be a legal obligation to tell people if their private conversations have been accessed.

Encryption keeps us safe and secure online. A backdoor is only possible by breaking encryption. And then anybody can abuse that cybersecurity weakness.

The government's last attempt to force Apple to build a backdoor into our accounts failed. We'll fight the latest order ➡️ https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaign/save-encryption/

Read more ⬇️

Public wary of UK government ‘backdoor’ surveillance following Apple row, poll reveals | Computer Weekly The public is wary of UK government surveillance powers that require technology companies to build ‘backdoors’ to access encrypted communications, according to a poll of 2,000 people in the UK by a Washington-based advocacy group.

Farage proposes to scrap GDPR... where to start?

GDPR protects women, workers, patients, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ communities, and everybody else from discrimination and abuse. Scrapping it would be a capitulation to abusive Big Tech corporations and the Trump administration that backs them.

So Reform UK bins GDPR. What then?

Farage suggests aligning the UK to the New Zealand Privacy Act. And yet New Zealand have spent the last decade trying to align with the gold standard of the GDPR... What other people crave, in the UK we already have it. But Nigel Farage would take it away.

Scrapping the GDPR means siding with those who want to hide abuse and discrimination behind an algorithm. Siding with the Trump administration, and against the interests of the British public. And with rogue companies and Big Tech over responsible and law-abiding businesses.

It's a no, Nigel.

www.politico.eu

Coming up, the coalition is holding townhall events across the country.

Join us to explore how AI and ‘crime-predicting’ tech is being used by local police forces. And what can be done about it.

⚫ London – 17 September
⚫ Manchester – 24 September
⚫ Bristol – 1 October

The use of AI tools across UK policing has escalated dramatically. We're calling for an end to so-called “predictive” policing. We need legislation that protects people’s rights and safeguards against the harms of AI and tech uses in policing and immigration settings.

We want a society where surveillance and digital policing isn't heralded as the answer to social and economic problems.

Book your place now ⬇️

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/safety-not-surveillance-townhall/



Liberty Kids of Colour Bristol Copwatch Northern Police Monitoring Project

Safety Not Surveillance – National Townhalls on AI and ‘crime-predicting’ technologies This autumn, the coalition will host a series of community townhalls in London, Manchester and Bristol – bringing the public together to discuss the impacts of AI tools and ‘crime-predicting’ technologies used by local police forces.

The flawed eVisa scheme strikes again.

Not for the first time, a person's data has been incorrectly linked to someone else's account.

Last year, ORG and 18 other groups called on the ICO to investigate the data breaches and accessibility issues with the eVisa scheme.

But they've done nothing.

The eVisa scheme has been a disaster from the start. It's people's lives that are being left in disarray and uncertainty while these failings go ignored.

We're now calling on the Select Committee to investigate and help those whose data has been created as a result of the scheme.

Read more ➡️ https://www.openrightsgroup.org/press-releases/civil-society-organisations-call-for-ico-to-be-investigated-over-evisas/

Woman stranded in Spain after UK’s eVisa system mistakes her for twin sister Nidia Webb, who is legally settled in UK, falls foul of ‘known issue’ with Home Office’s digitised immigration process

Nottinghamshire Police could target children for anti-social behaviour using their intrusive and discriminatory face-scanning tech.

We've joined Big Brother Watch and leading rights groups to tell the force to .

Live facial recognition puts ALL our rights and freedoms at risk.

Adding children – some as young as 11 years old – and subjecting them to biometric ID checks is unacceptable.

We demand .

Read the letter ➡️https://www.openrightsgroup.org/app/uploads/2026/08/Letter-to-Nottinghamshire-Police-on-LFR_Aug-2026.pdf

Young people have their say: rethink the social media ban.

It makes a bad situation worse. Teens are just being pushed into unregulated spaces.

A ban does nothing to actually tackle the cause of online harms coming from the business model of the platforms themselves.

That’s what we need to fix.

Young people call on Burnham to rethink social media ban Youth groups have warned the Prime Minister the plans could lead young people to less regulated parts of the internet.

Prevent referrals have shot up by ~40% 📈

Kids, teens and vulnerable people are being pushed into a mass surveillance programme where 80% of referrals don't go anywhere. But their data remains in the system. It’s clear that a programme designed for counter-terrorism has lost the plot.

Under 18s make up the majority of referrals into Prevent. Over a third are people with mental health conditions and people who are neurodivergent. Often referrals are made to fast track people to get support. Long-term surveillance is the trade off. Prevent is the wrong answer.

It's meant to identify people at risk of radicalisation before any crime has been committed. But over 50% of referrals fall under 'no fixed ideology'. And governments have added more categories into the mix, bloating the system with referrals that don't belong under a counter-terrorism lens.

Beyond the headlines figures, there's little transparency over the extent of surveillance that those referred into Prevent will face. Being neither wholly owned by policing or by counter-terrorism, there appears to be no oversight or parliamentary scrutiny of data sharing, processing and storage.

Prevent is expanding the surveillance state at an unruly rate. Public sector workers shouldn't be co-opted as agents of counter-terror policing. People in need of support shouldn't be stigmatised as suspect.

We need real investment in education, community health services and local infrastructure.

Read our latest blog ⬇️

Rising Prevent referrals and the runaway train of mass surveillance Over 10,000 people were referred to the Prevent programme between October 2024 to September 2025, according to the government’s latest figures.