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.
Filter resources
-
Bavarians protest against vastly extended police powers
A large anti-surveillance rally took place in Munich on 10 May 2018. 30 000 protesters showed their dismay about the Bavarian plans to reform the law on the tasks of the state’s police. Even the organisers were surprised by the scale of the demonstration – they had expected fewer than 10 000 people.
Read more
-
A guide to EDRi at RightsCon 2018
This year, three members of our Brussels office are attending RghtsCon in Toronto: Executive Director Joe McNamee, Senior Policy Adviser Maryant Fernández Pérez and Policy Intern Gemma Shields. The conference days are full of panels, meetings, informal get-togethers and fun activities. Here is our guide to the sessions moderated or attended by EDRi staff. Wednesday […]
Read more
-
Facebook: Unanswered questions
On 9 April 2018, EDRi received an invitation from Facebook to attend a meeting to the loss of trust in Facebook, following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Read more
-
New EU proposals foresee mandatory biometrics in national ID cards
The European Commission has proposed a host of new measures aimed at “denying terrorists the means to act” which include the mandatory inclusion of two biometrics – fingerprints and a facial image – in all ID cards and residence documents for European Union citizens and their family members issued by Member States.
Read more
-
Are GDPR certification schemes the next data transfer disaster?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) encourages the establishment of data protection certification mechanisms, “in particular at [EU] level” (Art. 42(1)). But the GDPR also envisages various types of national schemes, and allows for the approval (“accreditation”) of schemes that are only very indirectly linked to the national data protection authority.
Read more
-
Big Brother Awards – tips and materials for organisers
In October 2018, we will celebrate 20th anniversary of the first Big Brother Awards (BBA) event in UK.
Read more
-
Welcoming new EDRi members: FSFE, Hermes Center, NOYB, and Xnet
We are proud to announce that the EDRi network has grown again, and we would like to warmly welcome the four new members: Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights, NOYB, and Xnet. European Digital Rights has now 39 members in 19 countries.
Read more
-
EU Member States fight to retain data retention in place despite CJEU rulings
EU Member States are still working to adopt their position on the ePrivacy Regulation proposed by the European Commission in January 2017. A number of draft compromise texts have been published by the Council Presidency before discussions in the Working Party on Telecommunications and Information Society (WP TELE).
Read more
-
ePrivacy: Civil society letter calls to ensure privacy and reject data retention
On 23 April 2017, EDRi, together with other civil society organisations, sent a follow up to our previous open letter to the permanent representations of EU Member States in Brussels. The letter highlighted the importance of the ongoing reform of Europe’s ePrivacy legislation for strengthening individuals’ rights to privacy and freedom of expression and for rebuilding […]
Read more
-
Fighting for migrants’ data protection rights in the UK
Since 2014, the United Kingdon (UK) government has steadily rolled out policies to make the country a “hostile environment” for migrants, in the words of Prime Minister Theresa May.
Read more
-
DPAs require urgent action on air passenger surveillance
The Working Party 29 (WP29) is an advisory body composed of representatives from the data protection authority of each EU Member State, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and the European Commission.
Read more
-
Cambridge Analytica access to Facebook messages a privacy violation
Less than one month after Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Christopher Wiley exposed the abuse of (so far) 87 million Facebook users’ data, Facebook Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerburg testified before the US Congress.
Read more