Privacy and surveillance
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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Open letter: Civil society urges Member States to respect the principles of the law in Terrorist Content Online Regulation
On 27 March 2020, European Digital Rights (EDRi) and 12 of its member organisations sent an open letter to representatives of Member States in the Council of the EU. In the letter, we voice our deep concern over the proposed legislation on the regulation of terrorist content online and what we view as serious potential threats to fundamental rights of privacy, freedom of expression, etc.
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Facial Recognition & Biometric Mass Surveillance: Document Pool
Despite evidence that public facial recognition and other forms of biometric mass surveillance infringe on a wide range EU fundamental rights, European authorities and companies are deploying these systems at a rapid rate. This has happened without proper consideration for how such practices invade people's privacy on an enormous scale; amplify existing inequalities; and undermine democracy, freedom and justice.
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EDRi calls for fundamental rights-based responses to COVID-19
Some of the actions taken by governments and businesses under exceptional Coronavirus circumstances today, can have significant repercussions on freedom of expression, privacy and other human rights both today and tomorrow.
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Terrorist Content Online Regulation: Time to get things right
Closed-door negotiations (“trilogues”) on the Regulation to prevent the dissemination of terrorist content continue in Brussels. After our open letter from December things have moved on fairly slowly at first, but, recently, new texts are quickly being discussed in order to try to reach an agreement soon. Nonetheless, according to MEP Patrick Breyer, many key issues remain open for discussion.
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Stuck under a cloud of suspicion: Profiling in the EU
As facial recognition technologies are gradually rolled out in police departments across Europe, anti-racism groups blow the whistle on the discriminatory over-policing of racialised communities linked to the increasing use of new technologies by law enforcement agents.
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Germany: Invading refugees’ phones – security or population control?
In its new study, EDRi member Society for Civil Rights (GFF) examines how German authorities sniff out refugees’ phones. The aim of “data carrier evaluation” is supposed to be determining a person’s identity and their country of origin. However, in reality, it violates refugees’ rights and does not produce any meaningful results.
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Accountable Migration Tech: Transparency, governance and oversight
Migration continues to dominate headlines around the world. For example, given the currently deteriorating situation at the border between Greece and Turkey, with reports of increasingly repressive measures to turn people away, new technologies already play a part in border surveillance and decision-making at the border.
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Security Information Service wins the Czech Big Brother Awards
The Czech Big Brother Award (BBA) 2019 winners are the Czech Security Information Service (BIS), the antivirus company Avast, and the energy company PRE. Positive prize of Edward Snowden went to the city of Prague.
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E-evidence and human rights: The Parliament is not quite there yet
The European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) is currently busy working out a compromise between its different political groups in order to establish a common position on the “e-evidence” Regulation.
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ECtHR: UK Police data retention scheme violated the right to privacy
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Click here to allow notifications in cross-border access to data
From a fundamental rights perspective, it’s essential that the proposal enabling cross-border access to data for criminal proceedings (“e-evidence”) includes a notification mechanism. However, this requirement of a notification seems to be out of the question for those advocating for “efficiency” of cross-border criminal investigations, even if that means abandoning the most basic procedural safeguards […]
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Swedish law enforcement given the permission to hack
On 18 February 2020, the Swedish parliament passed a law that enables Swedish law enforcement to hack into devices such as mobile phones and computers that the police thinks a suspect might use. As with the recent new data retention law only one party (and one member of another party) voted against the resolution (286-26 […]
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