Surveillance and data retention
Surveillance is when an individual or organisation is watching, tracking, filtering, analysing or blocking what you can see and do online or offline. It can be targeted on a specific individual (such as someone suspected of a crime) or it can be done indiscriminately (such as on all users from a particular country), also known as mass surveillance. Surveillance - and the retention of surveillance data - can impose restrictions on our fundamental rights in the digital environment by interfering with our freedom online, or by using digital technology to follow our offline movements, in order to gain an intimate picture of our lives, our beliefs and our interactions.
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Chat control: 10 principles to defend children in the digital age
The automated scanning of everyone’s private communications, all of the time, constitutes a disproportionate interference with the very essence of the fundamental right to privacy. It can constitute a form of undemocratic mass surveillance, and can have severe and unjustified repercussions on many other fundamental rights and freedoms, too.
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Online Safety Bill: Kill Switch for Encryption
Of the many worrying provisions contained within the draft Online Safety Bill, perhaps the most consequential is contained within Chapter 4, at clauses 63-69. This section of the Bill hands OFCOM the power to issue “Use of Technology Notices” to search engines and social media companies.
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UK can join EU surveillance schemes with no parliamentary scrutiny, warns new report
The UK can join intrusive EU surveillance schemes including a pan-European network of police facial recognition databases with no need for parliamentary debate or scrutiny, says a new report published by EDRi member Statewatch.
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Secret negotiations about Europol: the big rule of law scandal
In negotiations held behind closed doors, the Council of Member States and the European Parliament are about to torpedo all the efforts of the European data protection watchdog’s to hold Europol accountable for its illegal data practices.
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People ask MEPs: Take the opportunity, end surveillance ads!
Thousands of people are asking the EU Parliament to end online surveillance advertising , ahead of the DSA (Digital Services Act) vote in the plenary on Thursday, 20 January 2022. EDRi is part of the movement mobilising people, together with individual organisations in the PeopleVsBigTech group and beyond.
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The EU’s own ‘Snowden Scandal’: Europol’s Data Mining
On 3 January 2022, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), which supervises the processing of personal data by the EU’s law enforcement agency, Europol, ordered Europol to delete data held in its databases on individuals with no established link to criminal activity.
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Don’t let Big Tech fool you: Small businesses don’t want surveillance advertising
Tracking-based advertising has become all pervasive in the digital world. Amnesty Tech's new research shows that small businesses know very well how harmful these practices are to human rights but have little alternative.
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Online surveillance thrives when fear takes over
European law-enforcement agencies have been pushing to end encryption and survey everyone’s online communications.
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Managed by Bots: surveillance of gig-economy workers
WIE’s recent ‘Managed by Bots’ report demonstrates that opaque algorithms dictate almost every aspect of gig economy employees’ work, offering them limited visibility or avenues for redress when a decision is made about them.
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Opinion on the Passenger Name Record CJEU case
In Case-817/19, Belgium’s Constitutional Court has asked the EU Court of Justice whether the PNR Directive (2016/681) is compatible with the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The hope must be that the Court will stand up for the rights of individuals, enforce the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and declare the PNR Directive (like the Data Retention Directive) to be fundamentally in breach of the Charter.
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Romania uses the EECC Directive implementation to extend communication surveillance
A new proposal to extend communication surveillance and to intercept encrypted communications was hidden by the Romanian Government in the national implementation of the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC Directive) and was passed without any discussion in the Romanian Chamber of Deputies on 7 December 2021.
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Council and Parliament find provisional agreement on the Data Governance Act
On 30 November, the European Parliament and Council provisionally agreed on the final version of the Data Governance Act (DGA). The text, which will still require final approval by both institutions, is the first legislative element of the European data strategy to emerge in its final form. While the final text is yet to be published, here is an overview of the main elements of the Act.
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