The Open Rights Group (ORG) is a UK-based organisation that works to preserve

digital rights Digital rights are those human rights and Natural and legal rights, legal rights that allow individuals to access, use, create, and publish digital media or to access and use computers, other Consumer electronics, electronic devices, and teleco ...

and freedoms by campaigning on digital rights issues and by fostering a community of grassroots activists. It campaigns on numerous issues including mass surveillance, internet filtering and censorship, and intellectual property rights.

History

The organisation was started by Danny O'Brien,

Cory Doctorow Cory Efram Doctorow (; born 17 July 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog ''Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of th ...

, ,

Rufus Pollock Rufus Pollock (born 1980) is a British economist, activist and social entrepreneur. He has been a leading figure in the global open knowledge and open data movements, starting with his founding in 2004 of the non-profit Open Knowledge Foundatio ...

James Cronin James Watson Cronin (September 29, 1931 – August 25, 2016) was an American particle physicist. Cronin and co-researcher Val Logsdon Fitch were awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics for a 1964 experiment that proved that certain subatomic ...

, Stefan Magdalinski, Louise Ferguson and Suw Charman after a panel discussion at Open Tech 2005. O'Brien created a pledge on PledgeBank, placed on 23 July 2005, with a deadline of 25 December 2005: ''"I will create a standing order of 5 pounds per month to support an organisation that will campaign for digital rights in the UK but only if 1,000 other people will too."'' The pledge reached 1000 people on 29 November 2005. The Open Rights Group was launched at a "sell-out" meeting in

Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

, London.

Work

The group has made submissions to the All Party Internet Group (APIG) inquiry into

digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures, such as access control technologies, can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. DRM ...

and the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property. The group was honoured in the 2008

Privacy International Privacy International (PI) is a UK-based registered charity that defends and promotes the right to privacy across the world. First formed in 1990, registered as a non-profit company in 2002 and as a charity in 2012, PI is based in London. Its ...

Big Brother Awards alongside No2ID,

Liberty Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views. The concept of liberty can vary depending on perspective and context. In the Constitutional ...

, Genewatch UK and others, as a recognition of their efforts to keep state and corporate

mass surveillance Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by Local government, local and federal governments or intell ...

at bay. In 2010 the group worked with

38 Degrees 38 Degrees is a British not-for-profit political-activism organisation. It describes itself as " progressive" and claims to "campaign for fairness, defend rights, promote peace, preserve the planet and deepen democracy in the UK". 38 Degrees t ...

to oppose the introduction of the Digital Economy Act, which was passed in April 2010. The group opposes measures in the draft

Online Safety Bill Online Safety Bill may refer to: * Online Safety Act 2023, 2023 United Kingdom legislation * Online Safety Act (Sri Lanka), 2024 Sri Lanka legislation * Kids Online Safety Act, 2023 United States legislation {{disambiguation ...

introduced in 2021, that it sees as infringing free speech rights and online anonymity. The group campaigns against the

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It holds the responsibility for culture and sport, and some aspects of the media throughout the UK, such as broadcasting. I ...

's plan to switch to an opt-out model for

cookies A cookie is a sweet biscuit with high sugar and fat content. Cookie dough is softer than that used for other types of biscuit, and they are cooked longer at lower temperatures. The dough typically contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of ...

. The group spokesperson stated that " e UK government propose to make online spying the default option" in response to the proposed switch.

Goals

* To collaborate with other digital rights and related organisations. * To nurture a community of campaigning volunteers, from grassroots activists to technical and legal experts. * To preserve and extend traditional

civil liberties Civil liberties are guarantees and freedoms that governments commit not to abridge, either by constitution, legislation, or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties of ...

in the digital world. * To provide a media clearinghouse, connecting journalists with experts and activists. * To raise awareness in the media of

abuses.

Areas of interest

The organisation, though focused on the impact of digital technology on the liberty of UK citizens, operates with an apparently wide range of interests within that category. Its interests include:ORG issues and interests
, ''Open Rights Group website'', last visited 30 May 2008Digital rights issues
, ''Open Rights Group website'', last visited 30 May 2008

Access to knowledge

Copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

** Free and

open source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

** The

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

Crown copyright Crown copyright is a type of copyright protection. It subsists in works of the governments of some Commonwealth realms and provides special copyright rules for the Crown, i.e. government departments and (generally) state entities.Judge, E. F. (201 ...

* Digital Restrictions Management *

Software patents A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, library, user interface, or algorithm. The validity of these patents can be difficult to evaluate, as software is often at once a product of engineering, something ...

Free speech and censorship

* Internet filtering * Right to parody * s. 127

Communications Act 2003 The Communications Act 2003 (c. 21) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The act, which came into force on 25 July 2003, superseded the Telecommunications Act 1984. The new act was the responsibility of Culture Secretary Tessa ...

Government and democracy

Electronic voting Electronic voting is voting that uses electronic means to either aid or handle casting and counting ballots including voting time. Depending on the particular implementation, e-voting may use standalone '' electronic voting machines'' (also ...

Freedom of information legislation Freedom of information laws allow access by the general public to data held by national governments and, where applicable, by state and local governments. The emergence of freedom of information legislation was a response to increasing dissatis ...

Privacy, surveillance and censorship

* Automatic Vehicle Tracking * Communications

data retention Data retention defines the policies of persistent data and records management for meeting legal and business data archival requirements. Although sometimes interchangeable, it is not to be confused with the Data Protection Act 1998. The differe ...

Identity management Identity and access management (IAM or IdAM) or Identity management (IdM), is a framework of policies and technologies to ensure that the right users (that are part of the ecosystem connected to or within an enterprise) have the appropriate acce ...

Net Neutrality Net neutrality, sometimes referred to as network neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, offering User (computing), users and online content providers consistent tra ...

* NHS patients' medical database * Police DNA Records *

RFID Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. An RFID system consists of a tiny radio transponder called a tag, a radio receiver, and a transmitter. When tri ...

Structure

ORG has a paid staff, whose members include: *Jim Killock (executive director) Former staff include Suw Charman-Anderson and Becky Hogge, both executive directors, e-voting coordinator Jason Kitcat, campaigner Peter Bradwell, grassroots campaigner Katie Sutton and administrator Katerina Maniadaki.

Neil Gaiman Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman (; born Neil Richard Gaiman; 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, audio theatre, and screenplays. His works include the comic series ''The Sandman (comic book), The Sandma ...

was previously the group's patron. As of October 2022, the group had over 43,000 supporters.

Advisory council and board of directors

In addition to staff members and volunteers, there is an advisory panel of over thirty members, and a board of directors, which oversees the group's work, staff, fundraising and policy. The current board members are: In January 2015, the Open Rights Group announced the formation of a Scottish Advisory Council which will be handling matters relating to Scottish digital rights and campaigns. The Advisory Council is made up of: From the existing UK Advisory Council: * Judith Rauhofer * Keith Mitchell * Lilian Edwards * Wendy Grossman And from the Open Rights Group Board: * Milena Popova * Owen Blacker * Simon Phipps One of the first projects is to raise awareness and opposition to the Scottish Identity Database.

ORGCON

ORGCON was the first ever conference dedicated to digital rights in the UK, marketed as "a crash course in digital rights". It was held for the first time in 2010 at City University in London and included keynote talks from

, politicians and similar pressure groups including

, NO2ID and Big Brother Watch. ORGCON has since been held in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, and 2019 where the keynote was given by

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is a former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. Born in 1983 in Elizabeth ...

References

External links

* {{Open navbox Access to Knowledge movement Articles containing video clips Civil liberties advocacy groups Computer law organizations Copyright law organizations Digital media Digital rights management Digital rights organizations Election and voting-related organizations Intellectual property activism Intellectual property organizations Internet in the United Kingdom Internet privacy organizations Internet-related activism Organizations established in 2005 Political advocacy groups in the United Kingdom Politics and technology Politics of the United Kingdom Public domain Radio-frequency identification