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You can’t uphold the law by breaking the law
The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) invited EDRi member Bits of Freedom to speak at their annual New Year’s Seminar. Hans De Zwart, Director of Bits of Freedom, talked about how the rule of law can only be defended by the European Union taking an exemplary role including by strictly adhering to […]
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CJEU hate speech case: Should Facebook process more personal data?
Austria’s Supreme Court of Justice has referred a case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) regarding hate speech on social media platforms. The referral could have a global impact on Facebook – and ultimately on our privacy and freedom of speech.
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Can we ensure EU terrorism policies respect human rights?
During 2017, the European Union (EU) increased its arsenal its “fight against terrorism”, namely by adopting a Directive on combating terrorism and by setting up a Special Committee in the European Parliament. In partnership with the Open Society European Policy Institute (OSEPI), the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the […]
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ENDitorial: Living as if being at an airport
The internet is starting to look more and more like an airport. Not only because of the ubiquitous surveillance, but also in the way that advertising is trying to steal our attention. Should we start working on a right to not be addressed?
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UN Security Council mandates worldwide air traveller profiling
In the name of “preventing, detecting and investigating terrorist offenses and related travel”, all United Nations (UN) Member States should develop systems for processing and analysing Passenger Name Record (PNR), Advance Passenger Information (API) and “fingerprints, photographs, facial recognition, and other relevant identifying biometric data”, according to a UN Security Council resolution (no. 2396) on […]
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Press release: 6th annual Privacy Camp takes place on 23 January 2018
Tomorrow, on 23 January 2018, Privacy Camp brings together civil society, policy-makers and academia to discuss problems for human rights in the digital environment. In the face of what some have noted as a “shrinking civic space” for collective action, the event provides a platform for experts from across these domains to discuss and develop […]
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2018: Important consultations for your Digital Rights!
Public consultations are an opportunity to influence the future legislation at an early stage, in the European Union and beyond. They are your opportunity to help to shape a brighter future for digital rights, such as your right to an open internet, a private life, and data protection, or your freedom of opinion and expression.
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EU-Japan trade agreement not compatible with EU data protection
The EU and Japan have announced the conclusion of the final discussions on a trade agreement, the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). Regarding cross-border data flows and data protection, the European Commission’s press release states that recent reforms of their respective privacy legislation offer new opportunities to facilitate data exchanges, including through a simultaneous finding […]
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ePrivacy proposal undermined by EU Member States
The discussions on the ePrivacy Regulation continue in the European Union (EU) legislative process. They were on hold for a few weeks because of ongoing negotiations on the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) – another big “telecoms” file that the Council of the European Union is working on.
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Copyright reform: State of play
In 2016, the European Commission (EC) launched its proposal for a new Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. This reform was supposed to update the previous Directive, to adapt it to the digital world. Since the previous Directive was adopted in 2001 (after a four-year legislative process), technology and the online ecosystem have […]
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Commission claims that general monitoring is not general monitoring
Will everything we do on the internet be monitored and checked against by a non-transparent mechanism that decides what can be published? It is a real threat, and currently it is coming from an area that patently does not require such draconian measures: EU copyright law. This threat is a peculiar one, because there are […]
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EU Parliament criticises incompetent Commission work on child abuse
The European Commission proposed its badly drafted “Directive on combating sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography” in 2010. In 2011, it was finally adopted by the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament.
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