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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The lobby-tomy 3: who are lobbying?
Did you know that there are 340,000 dentists in Europe? And that they lobby about privacy? Who else lobbies? How do parties/groups create coalitions to persuade policy makers? What’s the mayor of Amsterdam doing in Brussels? In this blog on the privacy lobby we describe the different parties that are lobbying. The new European data […]
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Transatlantic coalition of civil society groups: Privacy Shield is not enough – renegotiation is needed
Today, EDRi joined forces with other 26 civil society organisations to send a letter to European leaders reviewing the “Privacy Shield” data-transfer agreement with a very specific message: this arrangement is not enough. The Privacy Shield is intended to allow companies to share data about customers across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, the Privacy Shield fails to […]
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EU Internet Forum against terrorist content and hate speech online: Document pool
Since last year, we have been reporting on the “EU Internet Forum” set up by the European Commission to fight terrorism and hate speech online. In reality, the IT-Forum gathers two initiatives: one run by the Home Affairs Directorate General of the European Commission, on “terrorism”; and one run by the Justice and Consumers Directorate […]
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The lobby-tomy 2: What was the lobbying about?
What do companies really think about privacy protection? Publicly everybody thinks privacy is important, but do they think the same thing behind closed doors? What were the hot issues during the lobby and did everybody treat privacy protection well? The new European data protection regulation is the most lobbied piece of legislation so far because […]
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Italy, net neutrality law proposal under consideration
On 8 July 2014, Italian MP Stefano Quintarelli submitted a law proposal which covers net neutrality, despite never mentioning those words. The draft law represents a positive input for network neutrality in Italy. This article explains why. Art. 3(1) of the proposed text (“Limitations to the management for traffic”) foresees that “ISPs (Internet Service Providers) […]
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Do privacy and the open Internet cause gambling debt in Sweden?
In the middle of January, a mid-sized Swedish Internet Service Provider (ISP) called attention to access blocking proposals made by a Swedish government committee on gambling regulation. The gambling committee was created to deal with recent legal challenges by the European Commission to Swedish gambling legislation. Access blocking is one of several measures to prevent […]
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Joint civil society statement on counter-terrorism and human rights
On 1 March 2016 13 civil society organisations, including EDRi, Amnesty International, Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations (FEMYSO), European Association for the Defense of Human Rights (AEDH) and Fair Trials published a joint civil society statement called „Counter-terrorism: The EU and its Member States must respect and protect human rights and the […]
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ENDitorial: Is “privacy” still relevant in a world of bastard data?
Should we still be talking about “privacy” in a world invaded by bastard data? We all knew what privacy was when it came to our data. We had our names and addresses, we had our store cards, we had our medical records, we had our insurance, we had our travel tickets, and the list goes […]
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UK’s mass surveillance law being rushed through legislative process
Last week, the UK government published the Investigatory Powers Bill, a new surveillance law that has been heavily criticised by privacy and free speech activists, the technology industry, lawyers and academics. A draft version of the Bill was published in November 2015 and scrutinised by three parliamentary committees. Between them, they made 123 recommendations for […]
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ENDitorial: PNR – political finger-pointing, no viable legislation
The EU Passenger Name Record Directive (or ‘PNR Directive’) would require the storage of travel data for airline passengers, ostensibly for law enforcement purposes. The specialist European Parliament committee responsible for the proposal rejected it in 2013 but adopted the proposal in 2015, following the terrorist attacks. The European Parliament recently decided not to schedule […]
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Respect My Net: online platform to report net neutrality violations
Today, we are re-launching RespectMyNet.eu – a joint initiative by civil rights groups including EDRi, La Quadrature du Net, Bits of Freedom, Access Now, Digitale Gesellschaft, IT-Pol, Initiative für Netzfreiheit, Nurpa, Open Rights Group, Xnet and several individual contributors. What is Respect My Net? Internet users should be in charge of their Internet connections. Instead, […]
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Press Release: Privacy Shield is the same unsafe harbour
Today, the European Commission published the “Privacy Shield” documents, which confirm that no meaningful reforms have been made and that none are planned. In November 2013, the European Commission adopted a Communication (pdf), in which it finally recognised the failure of the EU-US data transfer arrangement – the so-called “Safe Harbour” agreement. It then started a […]
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