EDRi-gram, 16 April 2025

What has the EDRis network been up to over the past two weeks? Find out the latest digital rights news in our bi-weekly newsletter. In this edition: Challenging data retention regime in Poland, Ljubljana’s municipal surveillance, and more!

By EDRi · April 16, 2025

Dear supporters,

It’s been hard to appreciate the suspiciously sunny days and warm weather we’re having in Brussels. Not just because of obvious climate crisis concerns, but also because there’s been a whirlwind of concerning announcements from the European Commission one after another.

In the last few weeks, we’ve been mulling over everything from ProtectEU, to the AI Continent Action plan, and various updates on the EU’s relentless ‘simplification’ push that is threatening to trample over hard-won human rights and environmental protections in laws like the AI Act and the GDPR, in addition to already having affected corporate sustainability obligations.

ProtectEU, the new internal security strategy, is especially worrying as it reads like the High Level Group (HLG) Going Dark agenda, with attacks on encryption, further expansion of Europol, and worsening data retention regime in the EU.

Data retention deep dive: Read about how EDRi member Panoptykon is supporting activists in challenging the data retention regime in Poland. You can also read our analysis of the implications of the most recent CJEU judgement on data retention in the HADOPI case, and what it means for future policy in the EU.

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