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Jan 30 - ERG Shocked "We are all becoming permanent suspects"

ERG - GibraltarPress Release from ERG: 

‘The announcement by the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority (GRA) of its privacy awareness campaign during this year is to be welcomed. But it does not go far enough, not by a long stretch of the imagination,’ Felix Alvarez, Chairman of Equality Rights Group has said in a statement to the press.

‘While online privacy is indeed an important concern which the GRA is right to address, the question is not simply about protecting against criminal activity by individuals (organised or not), it is also about protecting citizens from increasing and quiet snooping by the authorities into everyone’s private lives. This is a worldwide trend, and as a result, we have no option but to turn our gaze to our own authorities here in Gibraltar and publicly question. As a human and civil rights organisation we would be remiss in our duties not to do so.

‘In this respect, ERG urges the GRA to inform the public to what extent the Police and Government in any of its branches in Gibraltar access the privacy data and communications of citizens through interception of telephone communications, emails, internet browsing behaviour, and to any otherwise private details of individuals. In this, questions such as how many times Police and Government have applied for and obtained or been refused judicial orders to access such data and information would be most helpful in this year of the Authority’s campaigning.

‘Let’s be clear: where reasonable suspicion of criminal activity based on sound information is placed and sustained before an independent judge, noone is arguing against reasonable suspicion objectively and neutrally upheld. But we have seen in other places how often and to what extent these very same legal and security issues are abused for personal, political and other downright unacceptable ends. In this we would also include whether private hacking in Gibraltar is being practised by individuals, to what extent and which counter measures of control may or may not be in place.

‘In a tiny, highly polarised and often tense political and social environment such as ours in Gibraltar, there is a very real danger of misuse of power by any branch of our social system. A danger that ERG continues to be vigilant on. Especially because measures which, perhaps, may be more arguably sustainable in large countries and populations become wholly distorted and disproportionate in our tiny society and country.

‘This comes at a time,’ Mr Alvarez continues, ‘when we are learning that the Border will now be ‘upgraded’ to include automatic biometric and face-recognition technology. Judging from the limited information so far available, this could mean that each and every innocent person’s unique facial, eye and/or fingerprint data will be readily available to not only the Gibraltar but also the Spanish Government and kept, for noone knows how long, on their databases.

‘Will the Government, the GRA, the Police or all of them inform the public who exactly will be using and storing such information and for how long? And what sort of rights to that data will citizens have? And what are the precise terms of the foreseen impending EU ‘right to be forgotten’ which the GRA has hinted at in their press release?

‘Slowly but surely, security measures which were once put in place to justifiably target criminals and terrorists are slowly making each and every citizen a permanent suspect. CCTV and mobile phones track your every move constantly. And the presumption of innocence, a basic part of our democratic and judicial infrastructure, is being whittled down to almost nothing. This continuing and continuous back channel erosion on ordinary people’s birth right to privacy is unacceptable, and something we must all resist,' the statement ended.