Information democracy
Powerful companies and governments control the way the internet and new technologies are deployed. These actors blur the lines on corporate power in ways that have tremendous impact on people and democracies. The dominant business model of ‘Big tech’ platforms is based on surveillance, polarization and power imbalances. This ‘surveillance capitalism’ has had a global impact on democracy. For example, state and private actors can use the internet and technologies to spread political disinformation, to manipulate electoral results, to attack human rights defenders and to limit civic space.
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Workplace, public space: workers organising in the age of facial recognition
‘Surveillance capitalism’ is increasingly threatening workers’ collective action and the human right to public protest.
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EDRi joins 178 organisations in global call to ban biometric surveillance
From protesters taking to the streets in Slovenia, to the subways of São Paulo; from so-called “smart cities” in India, to children entering French high schools; from EU border control experiments, to the racialised over-policing of people of colour in the US. In each of these examples, people around the world are increasingly and pervasively being subjected to toxic biometric surveillance. This is why EDRi has joined the global Ban Biometric Surveillance coalition, to build on our work in Europe as part of the powerful Reclaim Your Face campaign.
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EDRi-gram, 16 June 2021
Some surveillance technologies are so dangerous that they inevitably cause far more problems than they solve. The use of facial recognition and remote biometric technologies in publicly accessible spaces enables mass surveillance and discriminatory targeted surveillance. In such cases, the potential for abuse is too great, and the consequences too severe. We must ban such practices once and for all.
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European Commission ignores civil society concerns and sides with creative industries
Today is a sad day for Europe. Instead of listening to reason and arguments, the European Commission itself brought up in front of the CJEU, the backroom political influence of the entertainment industry has won once again. Clearly “earmarking” content means preferring the economic interests of a few powerful actors over the fundamental rights of a whole generation.
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The urgent need to #reclaimyourface
The rise of automated video surveillance is often touted as a quick, easy, and efficient solution to complex societal problems. In reality, roll-outs of facial recognition and other biometric mass surveillance tools constitute a systematic invasion into people’s fundamental rights to privacy and data protection. Like with uses of toxic chemicals, these toxic uses of biometric surveillance technologies need to be banned across Europe.
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New win against biometric mass surveillance in Germany
In November 2020, reporters at Netzpolitik.org revealed that the city of Karlsruhe wanted to establish a smart video surveillance system in the city centre. The plan involved an AI system that would analyse the behaviour of passers-by and automatically identify conspicuous behaviour. After the intervention of EDRi-member CCC the project was buried in May 2021.
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Challenge against Clearview AI in Europe
This legal challenge relates to complaints filed with 5 European data protection authorities against Clearview AI, Inc. ("Clearview"), a facial recognition technology company building a gigantic database of faces.
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EDRi-gram, 2 June 2021
The GDPR is still in its infancy, and while it is too soon to consider revisions to the law, EU regulators and decision-makers have the power to improve enforcement and fulfil its promise for vindicating data protection rights and spurring the development of privacy-protecting business models. The past three years hold important lessons for decision-makers and regulators to leverage to deliver on that promise. A lot is at stake.
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Copyright Reform in Germany: Damage Reduction on Article 17
While waiting for the implementation guidelines from the European Commission and the CJEU ruling on whether upload filters are legal or not, some Member States are implementing the Directive. Germany has done some damage reduction in its implementation, according to former MEP and current GFF staff Julia Reda
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From ‘trustworthy AI’ to curtailing harmful uses: EDRi’s impact on the proposed EU AI Act
Civil society has been the underdog in the European Union's (EU) negotiations on the artificial intelligence (AI) regulation. The goal of the regulation has been to create the conditions for AI to be developed and deployed across Europe, so any shift towards prioritising people’s safety, dignity and rights feels like a great achievement. Whilst a lot needs to happen to make this shift a reality in the final text, EDRi takes stock of it’s impact on the proposed Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA). EDRi and partners mobilised beyond organisations traditionally following digital initiatives managing to establish that some uses of AI are simply unacceptable.
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EDRi-gram, 19 May 2021
The increasing use of facial recognition and other biometric surveillance technologies – on our streets, in train stations, at protests, at sports matches and even in our global ‘town square’, Facebook – means that our freedom to be anonymous in public spaces, our freedom to just be, really does face an existential threat. The mask is a symbol of resistance against the growing use of mass facial recognition. Get this symbolic merch and support the work EDRi does.
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DSA Proposal: Recommendations for the EU Parliament and Council
The Digital Services Act (DSA) is a mixed bag with some promising proposals, shares EDRi's member Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). In their "Recommendations for the EU Parliament and Council", they take a closer look at the substance of the DSA proposal and propose concrete suggestions for improvements.
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