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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How to fight Biometric Mass Surveillance after the AI Act: A legal and practical guide
The EU's Artificial Intelligence Act has been adopted, laying out an in-principle ban on live mass facial recognition and other public biometric surveillance by police. Yet the wide exceptions to this ban may pave the way to legitimise the use of these systems. This living guide, for civil society organisations, communities and activists, charts a human rights-based approach for how to keep resisting biometric mass surveillance practices now and in the future
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It’s time for a heart-to-heart about the EU’s surveillance agenda
The EU prides itself on its worldwide norm-setting influence in the fields of data protection and artificial intelligence regulation. Still, it is not always for the best when it comes to digital state surveillance. Privacy is safety. As we approach the European elections in June, it’s time to discuss the EU's role in shaping how technologies are developed and used.
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Position paper: GDPR enforcement done right
There is an urgent need to enhance legal certainty and prevent actions that undermine the effectiveness of and trust in GDPR enforcement. EDRi and Access Now have co-drafted a position paper on the EU Proposal for additional procedural rules concerning the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
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Resist Europol Document Pool
This document pool gathers all the relevant documentation regarding Europol’s powers and legislative reforms, critical analysis and research as well as tools for action.
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EDRi-gram, 2 May 2024
Last week, the European Parliament was doing everything everywhere all at once in the run up to the final plenary before the June EU elections. Let’s run through some of the highlights. In a disappointing move that will endanger medical secrecy, the European Parliament passed the European Health Data Space (EHDS). This law will expose everyone’s medical records to unnecessary security and privacy risks in the name of research and “innovation”. The Parliament also took its final step on the much touted Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act last week. With the final version of the law full of loopholes and missed opportunties, we’re left to contend with how to keep advocating for the protection of peope’s rights and fight against biometric mass surveillance. We also directed our attention towards the European Commission’s concerning decision to allow unrestricted data flows to Israel. Together with Access Now and 11 other civil society groups, we wrote to the Commission to ask for clarity on this decision.
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The future of our fight against biometric mass surveillance
The final AI Act is disappointingly full of holes when it comes to bans on different forms of biometric mass surveillance (BMS). Despite this, there are some silver linings in the form of opportunities to oppose BMS in public spaces and to push for better protection of people’s sensitive biometric data.
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Open letter: Modernised ePrivacy legislation must protect fundamental rights
Today, 24 April, EDRi and 13 organisations call for robust legislation to complement and particularise the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and call upon the next European Commission to include comprehensive plans for reforming the European Union’s ePrivacy legislation.
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Open letter: European Commission’s decision to allow data flows to Israel alarms privacy experts
Today, 22 April, EDRi and Access Now coordinated an open letter supported by 11 civil society organisations that calls on the European Commissioner for Justice to provide further evidence and clarity on the decision to renew Israel’s status in the adequacy review.
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EDRi-gram, 17 April 2024
But what knocked everyone's socks off was the massive victory in Greece, where EDRi member Homo Digitalis' strategic complaint led to a record-breaking fine to the Ministry of Asylum and Migration for violating people's data protection rights in its border management systems KENTAUROS and HYPERION. This news from Greece, immediately followed by the European Parliament's vote on the European Union's asylum system (EURODAC), makes it irrefutable that the Migration Pact is the EU's attempt to codify in law surveillance practices that not only gravely harm the rights of migrants but which are illegal.
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Privacy is not for sale: Meta must stop charging for people’s right to privacy
Ahead of a crucial opinion by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) – a grouping of the EU’s chief privacy regulators - on Meta’s plan to charge for privacy, the European Commission has opened an investigation that we hope will cast light on the unlawfulness of Meta’s so-called ‘Pay or Okay’ model, which has become the ‘talk of the town’ in Brussels.
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Tech platforms must drop addictive features that harm young people
Social media companies construct their platforms in ways that make them addictive. Algorithms show individuals things that they think will keep them hooked for longer.
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Packed with loopholes: Why the AI Act fails to protect civic space and the rule of law
The European Parliament approved the AI Act on 13 March 2024, thus marking the end of a three-year-long legislative process. Yet to come are guidelines and delegated acts to clarify the often vague requirements. In this article, ECNL takes stock of the extent to which fundamental rights, civic space and the rule of law will be safeguarded and provide an analysis of key AI Act provisions.
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