October 26, 2021 · Blogs | Position papers | Privacy and data protection | Online tracking industry / AdTech | Platform regulation | Surveillance and data retention

Position Paper: The EDRi guide to 2,297 amendment proposals for the DSA

Various committees in the European Parliament have tabled such a large number of amendments for the Digital Services Act (DSA) that today, EDRi publishes a guide to support Members of the European Parliament in navigating those that would help create a successful, open, and rights-respecting European digital sphere.

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December 15, 2021 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Privacy and confidentiality

A beginner’s guide to EU rules on scanning private communications: Part 1

In July 2021, the European Parliament and EU Council agreed temporary rules to allow webmail and messenger services to scan everyone’s private online communications. In 2022, the European Commission will propose a long-term version of these rules. In the first installment of this EDRi blog series on online ‘CSAM’ detection, we explore the history of the file, and why it is relevant for everyone’s digital rights.

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January 19, 2022 · Blogs | On the ground | Privacy and data protection | Online tracking industry / AdTech | Profiling practices

Hide and Seek: Polish DPA agrees that people should be able to access their advertising profiles, but there’s no way to do so

Following EDRi member Panoptykon’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) complaint against one of the biggest Polish news website, Interia.pl - the Polish Data Protection Authority has confirmed that online publishers should give users access to their advertising profiles generated for the purposes of delivering behavioural ads.

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September 21, 2021 · Blogs | Publications | Open internet and inclusive technology | Privacy and data protection | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Inclusive technologies

Booklet: If AI is the problem, is debiasing the solution?

The development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) in all areas of public life have raised many concerns about the harmful consequences on society, in particular the impact on marginalised communities. EDRi's latest report "Beyond Debiasing: Regulating AI and its Inequalities", authored by Agathe Balayn and Dr. Seda Gürses,* argues that policymakers must tackle the root causes of the power imbalances caused by the pervasive use of AI systems. In promoting technical ‘debiasing’ as the main solution to AI driven structural inequality, we risk vastly underestimating the scale of the social, economic and political problems AI systems can inflict.

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July 26, 2021

Summit “The future of our digital world”

Covid-19 forced us all to rethink our digital presence. What did we learn about our dependence on online platforms? Who makes the rules of our digital realm? And who is responsible for supervising them? Isn’t it time to also think about the optimal future we want to see for our digital world?

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December 7, 2022

Platform Governance Research Network Conference 2023: call for abstracts

The Platform Governance Research Network brings together researchers interested in ‘platform governance’, broadly defined. From online labor markets and locally-tethered service delivery platforms, to social networks and cloud providers, we are interested in highlighting cutting-edge conceptual and empirical work that engages with the politics and policy of the 21st century ‘platformized’ internet.

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October 9, 2024 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Privacy and confidentiality | Profiling practices

Rushed EU eID Wallet risks privacy and security: Calls for safeguards are getting ignored in hasty eIDAS implementation

From a visit to the doctor to public transport tickets , the European eID will handle our most sensitive personal data in a wide range of every-day applications. Yet, speed seems more important to the European Commission than a properly functioning eID system that is safe & secure to use.

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March 9, 2022 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Biometrics | Privacy and confidentiality | Surveillance and data retention

Building the biometric state: Police powers and discrimination

This report examines the development and deployment of biometric identification technologies by police and border forces in Europe, and warns that the increasing use of the technology is likely to exacerbate existing problems with racist policing and ethnic profiling.

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May 4, 2022 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Platform regulation

Elon Musk buying Twitter. What could possibly go wrong?

A new chapter of the surveillance capitalism saga happened just three days after the EU members adopted the final agreement on the Digital Services Act (DSA). The board of directors of Twitter accepted Elon Musk’s offer to buy the company for USD 44 billion. The deal is not closed yet, and now the ball is in Twitter’s shareholders to accept or reject the offer. This news has grabbed the media's attention worldwide and opened public discussions on how this would affect not only the features of Twitter but also freedom of speech in the digital sphere. 

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December 4, 2024 · Blogs | Open internet and inclusive technology | Digital sustainability

EU’s twin transition in crisis: green extractivism, militarisation and civil society’s role

In June 2024, technologists, advocates, researchers, designers, artists and funders. met at Mozfest, to dismantle the underlying assumptions behind the techno-solutionist paradigm of the "twin transition”. This article summarises the main points of debate, and lays out next steps by mapping examples of transnational solidarity among digital and climate justice groups that can inspire field-building moving forward.

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April 22, 2021 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Online tracking industry / AdTech | Platform regulation | Privacy and confidentiality

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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March 23, 2022 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards

Electronic monitoring using GPS tags: a tech primer

Electronic tags have been a key part of criminal justice for many years throughout the world. As traditional radio-frequency tags are replaced by GPS ankle tags, we examine how these different technologies work and the seismic shift that will result from 24/7 location monitoring and data analytics, enabled by GPS tags.

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