Surveillance

ONI Blog: Google CEO Criticizes Chinese Internet Censorship
Last week, Google CEO Eric Schmidt criticized the Chinese government’s continued efforts to censor Internet content in the country at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Calling attention to a year-long dispute between Google and China concerning search...
ONI Blog: Australian Prime Minister Backs Web Filtering
The AFP recently reported that Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has begun actively pushing to filter Australia’s Internet content. According to news sources, the filter would block websites that contain rape, bestiality, and child sex abuse. Included in the plan...
ONI Blog: United Arab Emirates Arrests Activists, Bans BlackBerry Services
On July 29th, Reporters Sans Frontiers reported that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) arrested one BlackBerry user, detained another, and are pursuing five activists. The activists were planning a protest via BlackBerry Messenger against the increasing price of gasoline, and, unable...
ONI Blog: Stop This Law - Internet Regulation, Surveillance, and VOIP in Lebanon
Global Voices Online and the Social Media Exchange (SMEX) report that Lebanese activists organizing under the slogan Stop The Vote have managed to postpone parliamentary voting for one month (starting June 15) on what they see as a...
ONI Blog: Vietnam's New Green Dam?
Vietnam is continuing its steep fall down a slippery slope of Internet censorship and filtration and is raising more concerns over its new cyber-technology implementation. Internet censorship is nothing new to Vietnam, yet its policies have remained very much out...
ONI Blog: ONI Releases Reports on Filtering in Asia, China
New research from the OpenNet Initiative reveals accelerating restrictions on Internet content as Asian governments shift to next generation controls. These new techniques go beyond blocking access to websites and are more informal and fluid, implemented at edges of the network, and...
ONI Blog: UK: Plan to Monitor Internet Communication
In an effort to “modernize” police tactics and surveillance, UK’s home secretary has called for the implementation of a system that records internet contact between users, according to BBC News. This comes in the wake of Britain’s ruling out...
ONI Blog: Restriction on Internet use in the Middle East on the rise: Internet cafés in Saudi must install hidden cameras
In addition to technical filtering and surveillance practices, more countries in the Middle East impose restrictions on Internet use in cyber cafés. The latest example comes from Saudi Arabia where Internet cafés have been ordered by the Ministry of Interior to install...
ONI Blog: Can they hear me now? (On ICT regulations, governments, and transparency)
On February 11, Vodafone's global head of content standards, Annie Mullins, revealed that Vodafone handed over communications data to the Egyptian authorities in response to government demands. This data may have been used to help identify rioters who were...
ONI Blog: Internet Censorship in Saudi
Saudi Arabia has one of the most restrictive Internet filters in the world, yet according to BusinessWeek news reports, the Saudi censorship regime is vastly unlike that of most countries. Employing a mere twenty-five people, the country’s Communication and...

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