Our work
EDRi is the biggest European network defending rights and freedoms online. We work to to challenge private and state actors who abuse their power to control or manipulate the public. We do so by advocating for robust and enforced laws, informing and mobilising people, promoting a healthy and accountable technology market, and building a movement of organisations and individuals committed to digital rights and freedoms in a connected world.
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Denmark: Our data retention law is illegal, but we keep it for now
On 2 March 2017, the Danish Minister of Justice appeared before the Legal Affairs Committee of the Danish Parliament to answer questions about the implications of the Tele2 data retention ruling (joined cases C-203/15 and C-698/15) from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). In his statement to the committee, the Minister started […]
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People with disabilities do not want just any Accessibility Act
On 6 March 2017, the European Disability Forum (EDF), the umbrella organisation representing persons with disabilities at EU level, joined forces with its members and other civil society organisations to protest in front of the European Parliament in Brussels. Over a hundred people gathered together calling for a meaningful European Accessibility Act (EAA), to guarantee better […]
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German intelligence agency violates freedom of the press
EDRi observer Reporters Without Borders Germany is appalled by the apparently targeted surveillance of foreign journalists by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence agency. As reported by the Spiegel, the BND spied on at least 50 telephone numbers, fax numbers and email addresses belonging to journalists or newsrooms around the world in the years following 1999. […]
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Rights groups demand action on export controls
Nine civil society organisations, including EDRi and several EDRi members, have signed a letter to the participants of the Wassenaar Arrangement, a multilateral export control regime with 41 participating states. We joined Privacy International’s efforts, in expressing concerns that “elements of the current control list of technologies and proposed new additions will have adverse effects […]
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Are net neutrality and privacy Europe’s brilliant way of trumping destructionism?
For the online economy to work, trust and competition are needed. Trust to drive take-up of services and competition to drive down prices and drive up innovation. Privacy The 2016 Eurobarometer (pdf) survey found that nearly 60% of individuals in the EU had avoided certain websites for privacy reasons, while 82% were in favour of […]
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Civil society letter: Without reforms in US surveillance laws, the Privacy Shield must be suspended
A coalition of 17 global civil society organisations, including many EDRi members, wrote a letter to the European Commissioner for Justice and Consumers, Věra Jourová, to express the need for a reform of US surveillance laws. The coalition of civil rights group claim that Europe must suspend the data-transfer arrangement (the EU-US Privacy Shield) unless the […]
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Privacy Camp 2017 in video
On 24 January, the fifth annual Privacy Camp, co-organised by EDRi, Privacy Salon, Université Saint-Louis (USL-B) and the interdisciplinary Research Group on Law Science Technology & Society of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB-LSTS) took place in Brussels. Did you miss our #PrivacyCamp17: Controlling data, controlling machines? Now you can watch all the sessions or relive some […]
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We’re looking for a policy intern!
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A positive step forward against the “censorship machine” in the Copyright Directive
On 24 February 2017 the Rapporteur of the European Parliament (EP) Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), Catherine Stihler MEP, published her draft Opinion on the Copyright Directive. The Opinion sends a strong message against the most extremist parts of the European Commission’s proposal: the “censorship machine” (aka upload filter) proposal in Article […]
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Dutch House of Representatives passes dragnet surveillance bill
On 14 February 2017 the bill for the new Intelligence and Security Services Act was passed by the Dutch lower house. Despite being met with serious opposition from experts, regulators, civil society, political parties, and citizens, the revised bill passed virtually unchanged from the proposal submitted to the lower house. It’s beyond disappointing that a […]
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What does your browsing history say about you?
An average internet user visits dozens of websites and hundreds of web pages every day, most of which are kept in the history of our internet browsers. But what if someone took this massive database of visited web pages and cross-referenced them? A joint collaboration of Tactical Tech and SHARE Lab researchers focused on discovering […]
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Proposed Espionage Act threatens free speech in the UK
The UK’s Law Commission has announced proposals that could mean journalists and whistleblowers are treated as spies if they “handle” official data. The ongoing open public consultation on the protection of official data, run by the Law Commission, suggests that the crime of espionage is changed so that it is “capable of being committed by […]
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