EDRi-gram, 23 September 2026
What has the EDRi network been up to over the past few weeks? Find out the latest digital rights news in our bi-weekly newsletter. In this edition: Turning up the heat – Commission backs social media bans, Apple held accountable, summer to-dos, & more!
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Dear supporters,
What a historic summer we’ve been through. From multiple sweltering heatwaves that killed thousands of people, unprecedented wildfires, and rivers and waterways drying up, 2026 was the hottest summer on record for many countries across Europe and beyond.
It was also historic for other upsetting reasons – even as we suffered through heatwaves, with money for social services and climate resilience drying up, the EU launched a call for AI gigafactories, essentially investing billions of euros of public funds into climate-busting data centres. Age verification and social media bans for young people gained further traction, with France passing a bill to ban social media for people under 15, and other EU countries discussing similar proposals.
It all came to a head last week. European Commission President von der Leyen’s State of the Union (SOTEU) address officially ended the summer mood in Brussels, and launched us into what’s setting up to be an extremely busy, and critical, period ahead for protecting digital justice.
A key part of that struggle with be the KIDS Act, announced during the SOTEU, which will restrict social media access across the EU for people under 13 and also also exclude anyone who cannot verify their age – such as people who don’t have access to the right documentation due to being unhoused or their migration status. Instead of raising the bar and making the internet safer for all, the EU’s approach seems to be one of exclusion and putting up walls.
We’ve long maintained that safer online spaces for everyone – including young people – will require addressing the issue that’s at the root of it all: the business model and extractive practices of online platforms. Thankfully, important work is being done on that front by EDRi member D3 who have brought the first class-action lawsuits of their kind in the EU against Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube over the “addictive design” of these platforms.
Other things we’re paying close attention to: the spyware scandals in Serbia, this time targeting members of the student movement and opposition political parties right before the election. The Digital Omnibus saga also continues. EU governments could be just days away from agreeing to a disastrous deal on the Digital Omnibus on Data that would weaken some of the basic protections people rely on under the GDPR, such as knowing who is using their data, objecting to certain uses or expecting their data to be kept secure.
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Europe’s cookie law is really a law about surveillance
The ePrivacy framework limits commercial tracking and state access to communications. It is now being weakened from several directions at once.
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14 students and opposition politicians targeted by spyware in Serbia
EDRi member SHARE Foundation has confirmed that at least 14 people in Serbia were targeted with advanced spyware since the beginning of 2026 – the largest documented wave...
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Serbia’s spyware scandal is also the EU’s problem
At least 14 people in Serbia have been targeted with spyware since the beginning of 2026, according to new findings by EDRi member SHARE Foundation. The targets include...
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What you need to know about the EU’s new digital deportation regime
On 17 June, the European Parliament approved the new deportation law (called the “Return” Regulation) which aims to track undocumented people down and deport them from the EU...
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Why the EU age-verification tool does not solve privacy concerns
An EU legislative proposal for a social media ban will be presented at the State of the European Union (SOTEU) annual address, but the tools which are pitched...
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EDRi stands in solidarity with Autistici/Inventati after “terrorist” designation by the US government
The United States government has designated the Italian non-profit organisation Autistici/Inventati as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" for providing digital infrastructure to supposedly “violent far-left militants.” This targeting of...
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RECOMMENDED
[📰 read] We mapped the world’s hottest data centers by Rest of World. This summer was the hottest on record, and building and running data centres won’t help cool things down. This piece looks into the investments that countries with hot climates are making to meet the growing demand for generative AI while also storing data within their own borders, documenting how many data centers globally are located in regions too hot for optimal operations. Read here to discover more.
[📰 read] Visualising AI spending: How does it compare with history’s mega projects? by Al Jazeera. AI spending is forecast to skyrocket to $2.5 trillion in 2026, driven by a massive global build-out of data centres and services, but grasping big money figures can be a challenge. This piece visualises the staggering scale of these investments by comparing them with some of the largest projects ever created by humanity. Read here.
[📰 read] Is AI profitable yet? This tracker records the cumulative spend versus revenue across most major AI companies in one place, allowing you to see approximately how much money is flowing into the industry and how far it is from breaking even. Explore this resource here.
[🏃🏿 do] Sign up for A SUPERRR newsletter by SUPERRR Lab. Our member SUPERRR Lab addresses power structures in digital transformation by bringing new perspectives, such as feminist digital policy, to the table. This summer, they launched a website and newsletter dedicated to this topic, aiming to keep readers continuously informed with new case studies and resources to help them understand what ‘feminist digital policy’ means. Browse their page and sign up for the newsletter.
[🏃🏿 do] The German Big Brother Awards will take place this Friday, 25 September 2026, at 18:00 local time (UTC +0200). Organised by EDRi member Digitalcourage, this event has been going strong since 2000. Full English coverage with an interpreted livestream will be provided on bigbrotherawards.de/en. Why not organise a watch party and make it “official” by letting the organisers know?
EVENTS
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Bitkom Privacy Conference (#pco26)
The Bitkom Privacy Conference brings together leading privacy experts from supervisory authorities, companies, academia, and start-ups to discuss current regulatory developments and strategic perspectives for a future-proof approach...
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re:publica Vienna
The first re:publica Vienna brings Europe's leading festival for digital society, politics, technology, and culture to Austria.
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EU DisinfoLab 2026 Annual Conference
The counter-disinformation community will meet for #Disinfo2026 in Vilnius, Lithuania. The main conference days on 7–8 October 2026 will feature a full programme of sessions in a variety...
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Conference Digital Commons: Infrastructures, Design, and the Ethics of Autonomy
Digital Commons: Infrastructures, Design, and the Ethics of Autonomy is an international conference exploring how digital infrastructures shape contemporary life, and how communities, researchers, and technologists imagine and...
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re:publica x New Fall Festival
On 9 and 10 October 2026, re:publica x New Fall Festival will transform the NRW-Forum and the Ehrenhof in Düsseldorf into a place for exchange about the digital...
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Freedom Not Fear 2026
Freedom not Fear (fnf) is an annual self-organised conference on privacy and digital rights. People from all across Europe meet and work towards more freedom in the digitalised...
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Brussels Privacy Symposium 2026
Marking its 10th anniversary edition, the Brussels Privacy Symposium celebrates a decade of examining, unpacking, and driving substantive data protection scholarship and thought leadership.
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IGF 2026 – Internet Governance Forum
The 21st annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, marking the first gathering of the global multistakeholder community since the UN...
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40th Chaos Communication Congress (40C3)
Between Christmas and New Year's Eve, the Chaos Computer Club hosts its annual Chaos Communication Congress, a Europe-wide renowned gathering attracting more than 17,000 participants annually.
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Digital Rights and Equality Symposium
Oxfam Ireland is hosting the Digital Rights and Equality Symposium on 21 October 2026 at O’Reilly Hall, University College Dublin. This all-day event will bring together policymakers, regulators,...
JOBS
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7amleh is hiring for Admin and Finance Officer – France
7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media is a non-profit organization that advocates for Palestinian digital rights. 7amleh’s mission is to create a safe,...
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The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) is hiring for for Digital Fundraising and Growth Strategist & Director of Major Gifts, Individual and Family Giving
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to disrupting the architecture of online hate and misinformation. Through evidence-based research, policy advocacy and strategic...
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The Sovereign Tech Agency is looking for a Finance & Operations Associate
The Sovereign Tech Agency's mission is to imrpove and maintain foundational digital technologies that enable the creation of software. Examples include libraries for programming languages, package managers, open...
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Amnesty International is hiring for a Governance Coordinator
Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 10 million people who take injustice personally. They are campaigning for a world where human rights are enjoyed by...
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Mozilla is hiring for a Senior Software Engineer
Mozilla Foundation is committed to an internet that promotes civil discourse, human dignity, and individual expression. To an internet that catalyzes collaboration among diverse communities working together for...