By Vivian Ng and Daniel Marciniak
Gus Hosein has worked at the intersection of technology and human rights for over fifteen years. He has acted as an external evaluator for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), advised the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, and has advised a number of other international organisations. He is the Executive Director of Privacy International. We interviewed Gus when he spoke at the University of Essex Talk Big Data seminar on ‘Big Data, Big Brother?’ on 17 November 2016.
Could you tell us a bit more about the work you are currently doing, projects you are currently focusing on, and Privacy International’s strategy?
The field is changing, the world is changing and we always have to deal with the change. Privacy as a right has always been contingent on and defined by the environment around it. A year and a half ago, we evaluated where we are involved in the fight for privacy and thought about where we need to be involved. We identified three programme areas where we can make the largest contributions: (1) surveillance and human rights; (2) the Global South; and (3) data exploitation.
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