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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Germany: Will 30 June be the day populism killed free speech?
On 30 June 2017, the German Parliament will vote on the bill on “Enforcement on Social Networks”, also known as the “NetzDG”. This draft law, if adopted, could seriously impair human rights online, including freedom of expression and opinion. That is why we tirelessly explored different ways to make sure the European Union (EU) would […]
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Proposed Copyright Directive – Commissioner confirms it is illegal
At a meeting of the European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) on 19 June, European Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip made a statement that was both shocking and shockingly honest. He advertised the content filtering product of the US company Audible Magic as an affordable alternative to Google’s Content ID filtering technology for filtering European […]
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An end to copyright blackmail letters in Finland?
On 12 June, the Finnish Market Court ruled in a case Copyright Management Services Ltd vs. DNA Oyj that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are not obliged to hand out the personal data of their clients based only on the suspicion of limited use of peer-to-peer networks. Stronger proof of significant copyright infringements need to be […]
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The Freedom Index – easing access to information on rights issues
A diverse group of human rights defenders in the EU has launched an ambitious project that aims to radically change the way information relating to human rights is organised. If successful, the initiative will create a system that can permanently identify and preserve all human rights data across all languages, and radically improve its availability […]
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Denmark allows massive retention of location data for mobile internet
On 24 May 2017, the Danish telecom regulator announced its decision concluding that the retention of location data for mobile internet usage is lawful. With the decision, the regulator allowed for massive data retention, which seriously undermines citizens’ right to privacy, since it means they can be tracked at all times and the data is […]
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Are we on the right track for a strong e-Privacy Regulation?
European legislation protecting your personal data (the General Data Protection Regulation and Law Enforcement Directive on Data Protection) was updated in 2016, but the battle to keep your personal data safe is not over yet. The European Union is revising its legislation on data protection, privacy and confidentiality of communications in the digital environment: the e-Privacy […]
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#ALTwitter privacy revelation: European parliamentarian goes bananas
Recently, Mr Dunston (of the “Dunston Checks In” fame) came to the EDRi Brussels office looking for help. He complained that somebody from the European Parliament is messing up with his “holy banana collection” that he has been preserving since decades after he inherited it from his forefathers. Other than that we had no information.
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ENDitorial: AVMSD – the “legislation without friends” Directive?
When the European Commission proposed yet another revision of the TV Without Frontiers Directive in 2016, the Directive was really showing its age. The Directive was originally launched in 1989, revised just eight years later in 1997, again ten years later in 2007, and finally only three years after that in 2010. It has become […]
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Access to e-evidence: Inevitable sacrifice of our right to privacy?
What do you do when human rights “get in the way” of tackling crime and terrorism? You smash those pillars of your democratic values – the same ones you are supposedly protecting. Give up your right to privacy, it is a fair price to pay for the guarantee of your security! This is the mantra […]
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Commission’s waiting game: Gambling with freedom of information
In April 2017, EDRi wanted to shed light on the industry lobbying in Brussels surrounding the copyright reform. We therefore filed a freedom of information (FOI) request to access the correspondence the European Commission received from rightsholders at the time it was finalising its proposal for the new Copyright Directive.
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Internet clampdown – convenient distraction from political turmoil?
There was unforeseen result in the United Kingdom general election. The Conservative Party was expected to increase their majority in government. However, it failed to achieve a majority and was forced to seek an alliance with the controversial Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in order to form a government.
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Running an algorithmic empire: The human fabric of Facebook
Facebook, the most popular social networking platform, has undoubtedly become one of the most influential entities in our networked world. As SHARE Lab and researchers previously explained, Facebook can be seen as a huge, global factory of immaterial labour in which its users have basically one role – churn out as much personal data as […]
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