15 years of digital rights achievements

This special edition of the EDRi-gram is an occasion to reflect on the achievements of the European digital rights movement. We want to share some of our network’s national victories and success stories such as:

• Digitale Gesellschaft’s efforts for a respect of digital rights in Germany,
• FIPR’s work for better government IT systems in the UK,
• ISOC Bulgaria’s advocacy in support of privacy rights,
• SHARE Foundation’s opposition to internet filters and fight for the protection of personal data in Serbia,
• Wikimedia Germany’s promotion of open access to knowledge and culture world-wide,
• IT-Pol’s decisive influence in parliamentary debates in Denmark,
• and many more…

Since 2003, the network’s activists, members, observers and supporters have worked together to protect human rights in a rapidly changing technological environment. We’ve grown the network from 10 to 35 member organisations and 37 observers, our office to eight permanent staff and our active supporters to around 300 individuals.

We are proud to look back on some major milestones and victories:

• in 2003, our network presented the Big Brother Awards in 14 different countries,
• at the 2005 What the Hack conference, we launched a broad campaign against the EU’s data retention proposals,
• in 2005, a broad coalition of civil rights groups defeated the Software Patents proposal,
• in 2010, we successfully called for the rejection of the proposal for mandatory EU-wide web blocking,
• in 2012, we contributed to the defeat of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA),
• in 2015, we successfully pushed for an EU Regulation on net neutrality, and
• between 2012 to 2016, we played a key role in the adoption of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).