EDRi.org: Best of 2016

One of EDRi’s goals for 2016 was to reach a wider audience and raise awareness of the digital rights issues. As it turns out, with the help of our members and supporters, we were successful! Our blogposts and articles were read widely, and our most popular publication was downloaded more than 23 000 times. Here is a selection of the most read articles.

Net neutrality wins in Europe!
We are not able to report on positive policy developments as often as we would like. However, we were happy to report that the new net neutrality guidelines from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) confirmed strong protection for net neutrality and for the free and open internet. Readers were just as excited as we were: this was our most read article in 2016.
Read the blogpost here: https://edri.org//net-neutrality-wins-europe/

Big Brother Awards Belgium: Facebook is the privacy villain of the year
Our readers appreciated the news on the Belgian Big Brother Awards 2016, where the negative prize for the worst privacy abuser was unanimously granted to Facebook for harvesting and generating personal data from people all around the world, particularly in the context of the acquisition of WhatsApp. Recent news from the European Commission show that we were not alone in our concerns.
Read the blogpost here: https://edri.org//bba-belgium-2016/

New copyright directive fails at every level
There were some legislative proposals worse than others, but the queen of all was the Copyright Directive. It includes a proposal to potentially filter all uploads to the internet in Europe – a provision that would require internet companies to block uploads of perfectly legal material.
Read the press release here: https://edri.org//press-release-new-copyright-directive-fails-every-level/

Next year, you’ll complain about the Terrorism Directive
In December 2015, the European Commission proposed a Directive on combating terrorism. The proposal was drafted in two weeks, with no impact assessment. Since then, the legislative process has been rushed through. Provisions that undermine human rights online and offline have been added. Despite a difficult political environment, we did manage to achieve some successes in the Directive. We don’t give up and keep pushing for human rights.
Read the blogpost here: https://edri.org/enditorial-next-year-youll-complain-about-the-terrorism-directive/

Your privacy, security, and freedom online are in danger
The EU has a chance to protect citizen’s rights and freedoms in the upcoming e-Privacy reform. At the same time, we want people to learn about how to actively defend their privacy and to keep enjoying their freedoms. Our series of blogposts on privacy, security, and freedom proved to be a success.
Read the blogpost series here: https://edri.org/privacy-security-freedom/

New leaks confirm TiSA proposals that would undermine civil liberties
Trade agreements pose potentially serious threats to freedom of expression and protection of personal data of European citizens. In November 2016, German blog Netzpolitik.org in association with Greenpeace published leaked documents concerning the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). The documents confirmed that TiSA would undermine civil liberties.
Read the blogpost here: https://edri.org//new-leaks-confirm-tisa-undermine-civil-liberties/

Your guide to Digital Defenders
In 2016 we also witnessed an increase of downloads of our publications. A big success came with the privacy for kids booklet, which was downloaded more than 23 000 times. The booklet will soon be available in many other languages, and so we expect the number to continue rising.
Download the booklet in English here: https://edri.org//files/privacy4kids_booklet_web.pdf
Download the booklet in other languages here: https://edri.org/digital-defenders-help-kids-defend-their-privacy-around-europe/

Our other popular publications were, among others, booklets on data protection and net neutrality.
Download the data protection booklet here: https://edri.org//files/paper06_datap.pdf
Download the net neutrality booklet here: https://edri.org//files/EDRi_NetNeutrality.pdf

(Contribution by Zarja Protner, EDRi intern)