Human rights and tech: Foxglove UK

In the last two years, The Alan Turing Institute reported that over 90% of the UK population has encountered misinformation online. A study on news consumption found that 46% of UK children aged 12 to 15 struggled to identify false news on social media (only 2% found it easy). The NHS, TFL, and several UK county councils fell victim to cyberattacks. IT Governance reported a staggering 35 billion records breached worldwide across 9,478 publicly disclosed incidents.

 

2025 has barely begun, yet we’ve already witnessed numerous threats to our online security and wellbeing. In January, for example, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the disbanding of the company’s US fact-checking operation, citing concerns about political bias among fact-checkers.

 

The spread of misinformation, the erosion of privacy, and the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to profoundly and unpredictably impact our lives. But there are charities dedicated to protecting our online human rights.

 

This Charity Digital series will spotlight six inspiring charities tackling these critical issues and more. We begin with Foxglove UK.

 

 

Who are Foxglove UK?

 

Foxglove UK is an independent non-profit. They fight for a fairer tech future using litigation, campaigning, and communication. They stand up to tech giants and governments for a future where technology is used to benefit everyone ‘not just the rich and powerful.’

 

 

What does Foxglove UK do?

 

Have you ever considered the environmental impact of your email account? What about the UK’s data centres? Have you ever wondered exactly how private your private NHS data actually is? Foxglove’s newsletters and website provide a wealth of information about their campaigns and activities. They’re not on social media – for good reason.  

 

From supporting trade unions to putting pressure on the UK Health Secretary, from dealing with Competition Law to the intimate details (and drawbacks) of “fast delivery”, information about their essential work is open and available to all.

 

 

What areas do they cover?

 

Protecting data

 

Protecting personal data is important because personal data covers so many types of sensitive information. The UK government is centralising NHS England data into the Federated Data Platform (FDP), a system contracted to US surveillance technology firm Palantir. Crucially, the government has failed to obtain patient consent for how data will be used or clearly explain the FDP’s full purpose and the scope of data included.

 

Foxglove UK, in collaboration with its partners, is campaigning for the government to provide guarantees that:

• NHS data will never be shared with commercial companies without explicit patient consent.
• Data sharing with other government departments, such as the Home Office or the Department for Work and Pensions, will not occur  

 

Exploring tech’s environmental impact 

 

Have you ever considered the environmental impact of a data centre? No? According to Foxglove UK, data centre warehouses (measuring about 4,000 square feet) are: “Crammed full of servers storing and processing data. It’s roasting hot, full of bank after bank of server farms gulping their way through huge amounts of power and water, without pause, every moment of every day.”

 

According to The Guardian: “The energy consumption of data centres is set to account for 3.2% of the total worldwide carbon emissions by 2025, and they could consume almost a fifth of global electricity.” Right now, in Ireland, data centres use more power than every urban household in the country combined.

 

The UK government is planning to build more new data centres “for the economy” while removing obstacles for their construction. Foxglove UK is probing the legality of these plans. On top of that, Foxglove are demanding that the government require the big tech companies building the centres to conditionally invest in real green energy projects to the UK’s power and water grids.

 

 

Supporting workers’ rights

 

In the UK, Amazon’s warehouse workers can face long hours, low pay, and difficult targets, all under constant surveillance, according to Foxglove. Foxglove UK advocates for fair pay, safe working conditions, and mental health support for Amazon’s workers. They support the right to form unions and have a voice in the workplace.

 

In July 2024, workers in Amazon’s Coventry Warehouse went to vote in a union recognition ballot. If the ballot had been successful (and it almost was), it would have been the first in Europe where Amazon recognised the trade union.

 

 

Challenging big tech

 

Foxglove UK maintain that tech giants wield more power and resources than many countries. Simply put, they are too big and too powerful. They argue that companies can abuse power to exploit workers and disregard the safety of users’ while using their “size and power to push around democratic governments, refusing to play by the rules and crushing attempts to regulate them.”

 

Foxglove is based in the UK but the implications of this area of work are global. In 2024, Telegram’s CEO, Pavel Durov, was arrested in Paris for the platform’s role in facilitating illegal activities. Shortly after, a US court ruled that TikTok could be held liable for content linked to a child’s death, breaking with long-standing legal protections. In Brazil, the Supreme Court banned X (formerly Twitter) for failing to meet content moderation standards, freezing assets tied to Elon Musk’s companies.

 

 

In conclusion

 

Charities fighting for human rights in tech, like Foxglove UK, are essential in the digital age. From data protection to workers’ rights, environmental impact to challenging big tech’s unchecked power, they’re pushing for a future where tech and AI serves the many, not just the powerful few. They are holding governments and corporations to account, advocating for transparency, fairness, and justice.