UN Human Rights Office: "government surveillance on rise worldwide"
We knew this, but now it's increasingly such a part of the written record that even the United Nations Office on Human Rights has made a statement.
Stepping into a fierce debate over digital privacy rights, the U.N. office says it has strong evidence of a growing complicity among private companies in government spying. It says governments around the world are using both the law and covert methods to access private content and metadata.[Ed. note: So who are these private companies, and are they hiring? Because it seems like a bit of a growth industry at the moment: job security, woo hoo!]
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said the lack of transparency and tactics extend to governments’ â€de facto coercion of companies to gain broad access to information and data on citizens without them knowing.â€