Popular ride-hailing app Uber recently admitted concealing a massive data breach in 2016 that affected up to 57 million of its users (drivers and riders), including Filipinos. While its full extent remains unclear today, the breach and the dearth of information surrounding it should be a proper cause for concern. Read more…
The Foundation for Media Alternatives has successfully conducted its first Privacy and Data Protection Workshop for Civil Society and the Academe in Cebu City. The workshop ran from October 26 to 27, 2017 and was attended by around 20 participants from various civil society organizations and universities in the Visayas. Read more…
This article was originally published on 21 August 2017 as a blog entry at Newsbytes Philippines. For years now, legislators and law enforcement agencies, with support from the executive branch, consistently push for a mandatory SIM card registration in the country. In this Congress, proposals pending at the House of Read more…
11 July 2017 Foundation for Media Alternatives’ statement on a national ID system Officials of the Department of Finance made headlines recently with the pronouncement that the government plans to earmark PhP2 billion for the implementation of a national ID system next year. Together with their peers in the Read more…
This year, the Philippines is undergoing its third Universal Periodic Review (UPR) before the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC). The Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA) submitted a UPR stakeholder report on the state of digital rights in the Philippines together with the Association of Progressive Communications (APC), as well as Read more…
In March 2016, the Philippines took global headlines by storm when the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) website was breached and several voters’ databases were leaked online. The breach, popularly referred to as COMELeak, is now known to be one of the biggest government-related breaches in world history as it involved Read more…
Last week was a busy one for the newly established Department of Information and Communications Technology, as two of its attached agencies organized the first National Data Privacy Summit and the Cybersecurity Summit separately. The National Privacy Commission convened the first ever national data privacy summit on December 5-6, 2016 at Read more…
Foundation for Media Alternatives, in partnership with the Commission on Human Rights and with the cooperation of the National Privacy Commission and the Department of Information and Communications Technology, conducted its third national workshop on surveillance on 18 November 2016 at the DICT AVR. Entitled TIKTIK 3.0: Rise of a Philippine Read more…
The National Privacy Commission has issued two Memorandum Circulars (MCs) this week, the first since the body was formed earlier in 2016. The first circular, MC No. 16-001, is on the Security of Personal Data in Government. The Circular applies to all government agencies engaged in the processing of personal Read more…
Last March 2016, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) fell victim to what is now known as one of the biggest government-related breaches in history. This hack on the COMELEC database leaked the personal information of approximately 55 million registered Filipino voters. The incident soon caused widespread concern and public outrage, prompting FMA Read more…