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.
Filter resources
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How Austria wants to implement upload filters and ancillary copyright
EDRi's member epicenter.works sheds light on the Austrian implementation of the controversial Copyright Directive passed in the EU Parliament in 2019. As positive as some draft provisions regarding upload filters are, the Austrian implementation of ancillary copyright is poor.
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Dominant tech companies make their products incompatible deliberately
Imagine buying a new dining table from IKEA and although it’s a great table, it can only be used with IKEA-made chairs. For security reasons, the furniture maker tells you, the table is incompatible with chairs from third party vendors, sorry. Sounds ridiculous? Welcome to today’s online platform economy.
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Anonymity is indispensable
Would an anonymity ban on social media be a good solution to counter all the hatred on these platforms? We were asked this question by a national newspaper in response to such calls. Here is the reaction. of EDRi's member Bits of Freedom.
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Why EU needs to be wary that AI will increase racial profiling
Central to predictive policing systems is the notion that risk and crime can be objectively and accurately forecasted. Not only is this presumption flawed, it demonstrates a growing commitment to the idea that data can and should be used to quantify, track and predict human behaviour. The increased use of such systems is part of a growing ideology that social issues can be solved by allocating more power, resources - and now technologies - to police.
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E-Evidence: trilogues kick off on safeguards vs. efficiency
The Regulation on European production and preservation orders for electronic evidence in criminal matters (E-Evidence) aims to create clear rules on how a judicial authority in one Member State can request electronic evidence from a service provider in another Member State. One such use case would be requesting user data from a platform in another EU country during an investigation. We wrote about our main issues in the past.
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Upcoming judgment against mass surveillance in France
On Wednesday 21 April, the Conseil d'Etat (France's highest administrative court) will issue its final decision in the most important case that EDRi's observer La Quadrature du Net (LQDN) has ever brought against the intelligence services. This will be the end of six years of proceedings, dozens of briefs and countless twists and turns that have made LQDN what it is today.
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Thousands Expected to Sue Facebook in Mass Action Against Privacy Breach
EDRi's member Digital Rights Ireland (DRI) will sue Facebook to recover damages for those affected by the recent breach of personal data by Facebook, a first for legal actions against tech companies in Europe. See how you can join the lawsuit if you were affected.
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EDRi-gram, 22 April 2021
Issues of non-discrimination and fundamental rights would have to be at the core of the approach to artificial intelligence, rather than considered after competition and industrial policy. A truly people-centred AI regulation would take a step back and acknowledge the inherent harms AI will perpetuate if deployed for certain purposes.
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EU: New “ad-hoc working group” on vaccine passports starts work – in secret
EDRi's member Statewatch shares that discussions amongst EU member states on how to approach plans for digital vaccination certificates are taking place in a new "ad-hoc working group", a format that is not likely to foster transparency - particularly given that the group has said it will not be keeping "minutes as such".
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Buy a phone, get a tracker: unauthorized tracking code illegally installed on Android phones
EDRi's member noyb launched further action against Google’s AAID (Android Advertising Identifier), following similar complaints against Apple’s IDFA. The somewhat hidden ID allows Google and all apps on the phone to track a user and combine information about online and mobile behaviour. While these trackers clearly require the users’ consent (as known from “cookie banners”), Google neglects this legal requirement. noyb therefore filed a complaint against Google’s tracking code AAID.
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Regulating Border Tech Experiments in a Hostile World
We are facing a growing panopticon of technology that limits people’s movements, their ability to reunite with their families, and at the worst of times, their ability to stay alive. Power and knowledge monopolies are allowed to exist because there is no unified global regulatory regime governing the use of new technologies, creating laboratories for high-risk experiments with profound impacts on people’s lives.
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Computers are binary, people are not: how AI systems undermine LGBTQ identity
Companies and governments are already using AI systems to make decisions that lead to discrimination. When police or government officials rely on them to determine who they should watch, interrogate, or arrest — or even “predict” who will violate the law in the future — there are serious and sometimes fatal consequences. EDRi's member Access Now explain how AI can automate LGBTQ oppression.
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