In early December 2018 the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24) will take place in Katowice, Poland. The act to regulate the organisation of the event restricts civil liberties to an extent that has already become familiar to Polish citizens.

On 22 June, Polish president signed a new anti-terrorism law. The law contains measures that are inconsistent with the Polish Constitution and with the European Convention on Human Rights. The list of controversies is long: foreigners’ phone calls might be wire-tapped without a court order, and police might collect their fingerprints, biometric photos and DNA if their identity is “doubtful”. Online content might be blocked, citizens' freedom of assembly limited, and secret services are given free access to all public databases.

Sharing information is less and less our free choice. The society requires high visibility: those, who don't expose themselves become suspicious or excluded. But sharing is just the beginning. The real purpose behind it is profiling. Be that our insurance or health care scheme, unemployment benefit or school curriculum – more and more services depend not so much on who we are in reality, but on the quality of our digital profile. Who designs these algorithms? What business and political stakes are behind? Katarzyna Szymielewicz comments on contents of our digital profiles and its implications.

In our first attempt at a “transparency report”, we looked at what happens at the interface of Internet service providers and public authorities in Poland. Who sends requests for users' data? How many and for what purpose? What legal procedures are followed and what safeguards apply? Our pilot study includes analysis of legal provisions and collection of data from both major Internet Service Providers and public authorities. The report explains systemic problems that were identified in our research and that should be solved in order to ensure adequate standard of protection for individuals.

Before Snowden’s revelations we had known about FISA – law that mandates big companies to cooperate with U.S. intelligence agencies and revealed data about us, but we have not been aware of the scale and the depth of that surveillance. On the basis of this new information about NSA’s mass surveillance programs, Panoptykon Foundation tried to better understand how law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Poland can access data of Internet users and thus bring more transparency in this area. Katarzyna Szymielewicz presents main conclusions from this research.