Blogs
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The four year battle for the protection of your data
We were up against the combined resources of the largest multinational corporations and data-hungry governments, but we also had two things in our favor: the rapporteur Jan Philipp Albrecht and his team were adamant about safeguarding civil rights, and in 2013 the Snowden-revelations made politicians more keen on doing the same. Against all odds, we prevailed!
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A glimpse of our 15th Anniversary
In 2018, European Digital Rights (EDRi) turned 15. We gathered to celebrate a decade and a half of existence of our network and its digital rights victories. The anniversary party took place on 12 April 2018 in Brussels. In between keynote presentations, a fireside chat with our founders, and a final word from our Executive Director, […]
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ENDitorial: Can design save us from content moderation?
Our communication platforms are polluted with racism, incitement to hate, terrorist propaganda and Twitter-bot armies.
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New Dutch law for intelligence services challenged in court
On 21 March 2018, the Dutch voted in an advisory referendum on the new Intelligence and Security Services Act. A majority of Dutch citizens voted against the law in its current form – a clear signal that the law is in urgent need of reconsideration. EDRi member Bits of Freedom has been fighting against important parts of this law since the first draft in 2015, so the outcome of the referendum comes as a positive news.
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Bavarians protest against vastly extended police powers
A large anti-surveillance rally took place in Munich on 10 May 2018. 30 000 protesters showed their dismay about the Bavarian plans to reform the law on the tasks of the state’s police. Even the organisers were surprised by the scale of the demonstration – they had expected fewer than 10 000 people.
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Upload filters endanger freedom of expression
There are several examples of how automated upload filters are censoring human rights activists. As it has been proven, some filters used to classify content which is “offensive”, “extremist” or simply “inadequate for minors” have ended up censoring videos which tried to denounce injustices.
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A guide to EDRi at RightsCon 2018
This year, three members of our Brussels office are attending RghtsCon in Toronto: Executive Director Joe McNamee, Senior Policy Adviser Maryant Fernández Pérez and Policy Intern Gemma Shields. The conference days are full of panels, meetings, informal get-togethers and fun activities. Here is our guide to the sessions moderated or attended by EDRi staff. Wednesday […]
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Looking back at EDRi’s victories in 2017
Our key successes of 2017 were the vote in a European Parliament Committee rejecting upload filters in the Copyright Directive proposal, EU Parliament's plenary vote supporting ePrivacy, and the Council of Europe welcoming of EDRi recommendations on the issue of cross-border access to data by law enforcement.
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Cambridge Analytica/Facebook: Will EU politicians back up their words with deeds?
On 14 May 2018, European Digital Rights (EDRi) wrote to the main political groups in the European Parliament calling for political self-regulation to help fight the problems of disinformation and political micro-targeting.
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Facebook: Unanswered questions
On 9 April 2018, EDRi received an invitation from Facebook to attend a meeting to the loss of trust in Facebook, following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
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New EU proposals foresee mandatory biometrics in national ID cards
The European Commission has proposed a host of new measures aimed at “denying terrorists the means to act” which include the mandatory inclusion of two biometrics – fingerprints and a facial image – in all ID cards and residence documents for European Union citizens and their family members issued by Member States.
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Are GDPR certification schemes the next data transfer disaster?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) encourages the establishment of data protection certification mechanisms, “in particular at [EU] level” (Art. 42(1)). But the GDPR also envisages various types of national schemes, and allows for the approval (“accreditation”) of schemes that are only very indirectly linked to the national data protection authority.
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