Privacy and data protection
Privacy and data protection are essential for us to live, connect, work, create, organise and more. Governments and companies have long used mass surveillance for control trying to legitimise snooping for health, security or other reasons. The near-total digitisation of our lives has made it easier to control, profile and profit from our attention, data, bodies and behaviours in ways that are very difficult for us to understand and challenge. European data protection standards such as the GDPR are a good step forward but we need more to effectively ensure enforcement and protection against unlawful surveillance practices.
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#TeleormanLeaks: Privacy vs freedom of expression
The first big General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy case broke out in Romania at the beginning of November 2018 in connection with an article about a corruption scandal involving a politician and his relationship with a company investigated for fraud.
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Whom do we trust with the collective good?
Wittingly and unwittingly, we increasingly leave the care of society to tech companies. This trend will prove detrimental to us.
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Greece: Clarifications sought on human rights impacts of iBorderCtrl
On 5 November 2018, EDRi observer Homo Digitalis filed a petition to the Greek Parliament about the pilot implementation of the iBorderCtrl project on the Greek border. The Minister in charge will have 25 days to reply to it.
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Facebook fails political ads tests several times
On 28 June 2018, Facebook announced it had set forth a compulsory “Paid for by” feature, limiting anonymity by requiring to submit a valid ID and proof of residence. This had been introduced in reaction to a series of election interference in the past year through foreign political advertising on social media platforms.
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My Data Done Right launched: check your data!
On 25 October 2018 EDRi member Bits of Freedom launched My Data Done Right – a website that gives you more control over your data. From now on you can easily ask organisations what data they have about you, and ask them to correct, delete or transfer your data.
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NGOs urge Austrian Council Presidency to finalise e-Privacy reform
EDRi member epicenter.works, together with 20 NGOs, is urging the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union to take action towards ensuring the finalisation of the e-Privacy reform. The group, counting the biggest civil society organisations in Austria such as Amnesty International and two labour unions, demands in an open letter sent on 6 November 2018 an end to the apparently never-ending deliberations between the EU member states.
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Brussels up close – Experiences from the EDRi exchange programme
Learning and knowing abstractly how the EU works is one thing, seeing it up close and doing advocacy work right there is quite another! I am a Policy Advisor for the Austrian EDRi member organisation "epicenter.works – for digital rights" and, in October 2018, I spent two weeks with the EDRi office in Brussels. My aim was to get a better understanding of EU law making and advocacy.
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The GDPR Today – Stats, news and tools to make data protection a reality
25 October 2018 marks the launch of GDPR Today – your online hub for staying up-to-date with the (real) life of the new EU data protection law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The project will monitor the implementation of the law across Europe by publishing statistics and sharing relevant news around key subjects.
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CJEU introduces new criteria for law enforcement to access data
On 2 October 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered a new ruling in the “Ministerio Fiscal” case on access to data retained by electronic communications service providers under the scope the ePrivacy Directive.
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ePrivacy: Public benefit or private surveillance?
92 weeks after the proposal was published, the EU is still waiting for an ePrivacy Regulation. The Regulation is supposed to replace the current ePrivacy Directive, aligning it with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
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Council continues limbo dance with the ePrivacy standards
It's been six-hundred-fifty-two days since the European Commission launched its proposal for an ePrivacy Regulation. The European Parliament took a strong stance towards the proposal when it adopted its position a year ago, but the Council of the European Union is still only taking baby steps towards finding its position.
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Independent study reveals the pitfalls of “e-evidence” proposals
The conclusion of the study could not be clearer: “The added value of the new cooperation regime (quick and effective access to provider data) is mainly based on the abolition of cooperation obstacles and procedures ensuring effective protection of fundamental rights.”
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