Public Order Bill is a threat

28 May 2022: Read about the Bill below Follow the Public Order Bill as it makes its way through Parliament here:

https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3153 Dates and related documents are here: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3153/stages

28 May 2022: Sign the petition: 38 Degrees: To: Priti Patel, Home Secretary: Don’t electronically tag innocent people for attending protests

Don't electronically tag innocent people for attending protests

Contact Campaign CreatorCampaign created byBig Brother Watch 

Remove protest banning orders and electronic tagging from the Public Order Bill

Why is this important?

The Government’s new Public Order Bill would allow police to put innocent people on electronic ankle tags and ban them from attending marches and demonstrations.

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StatusNow4All at PCS Conference

24 May 2022 StatusNow4All at PCS Conference

25 May 2022: The Guardian: Home Office staff worry they may be asked to act illegally in ‘culture of fear’.

After 10 years of hostile environment, critics say immigration crackdown has had devastating human cost

Frontline Home Office staff have warned of a “culture of fear” where they are being put into dangerous situations, and may be asked to act illegally, on the 10th anniversary of the launch of the hostile environment.

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BID and Liberty call for an end to intrusive GPS monitoring

This has direct impact on time-served prisoners who are ‘released’ on immigration bail:

Updated with article dated 23 May 2022: Privacy International: PI submission on the GPS Tracking of Migrants in the UK

Privacy International has made a submission to the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration inspection of the Home Office Satellite Tracking Service Programme. We highlighted some of our concerns about the intrusive nature of location data as well as systemic failures relating to the quality of tags and battery life of devices which have a significant impact on individuals, as battery depletion can result in criminal prosecution.

Updated with Privacy International article dated 9 February 2022: Electronic monitoring using GPS tags: a tech primer

Electronic tags have been a key part of criminal justice for many years throughout the world. As traditional radio-frequency tags are replaced by GPS ankle tags, we examine how these different technologies work and the seismic shift that will result from 24/7 location monitoring and data analytics, enabled by GPS tags.

Read more: https://privacyinternational.org/explainer/4796/electronic-monitoring-using-gps-tags-tech-primer


14 June 2021: from BID and Liberty: Our letter, signed by 42 organisations, was covered in an article below in the Guardian

The most recent Home Office bail policy sets out its plan to transition from radio frequency
monitoring to GPS monitoring for people on immigration bail. Whereas radio frequency monitoring can verify whether a person is where they should be at a given time, GPS monitoring provides 24/7 real time location monitoring, tracking an individual’s every move: it tells you where someone has gone, where they have shopped, what GP’s practice they have been to, and much more. Those who are being monitored in this way do not know when the ordeal will end because there is no time limit for how long people will be tracked.

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Precarious migrants and COVID-19 responses: leave no one behind

Science Direct: Precarious migrants and COVID-19 responses: leave no one behind

Authors: M.-C.Van Hout C.Bigland A.Marsden A.Bangura F.Ngcobo L.M.Mponela G.McMahon

The continuous rise in forced displacement worldwide is alarming. Global inequality continues to fuel migration. The most recent Global Trends report by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reveals a concerning rise in forced displacement globally, with 82.4 million people displaced worldwide, with children representing 42%, with 1 million born in displacement between 2018 and 2020. According to the United Nations Migration Agency’s (IOM) World Migration Report 2022, global displacement is rising despite COVID-19 restrictions.

Estimating the numbers of precarious migrants is difficult. The population is de facto hidden. In Europe, it is estimated that between 3.9 and 4.8 million precarious migrants lived in Europe in 2017, an increase on 2014, but stable since 2016. In the United Kingdom, the estimated population of precarious migrants ranges between 417,000 and 863,000, including a population of UK-born children ranging between 44,000 and 144,000.

Read more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033350622000828