EU: New “ad-hoc working group” on vaccine passports starts work – in secret
EDRi's member Statewatch shares that discussions amongst EU member states on how to approach plans for digital vaccination certificates are taking place in a new "ad-hoc working group", a format that is not likely to foster transparency - particularly given that the group has said it will not be keeping "minutes as such".
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EU: New “ad-hoc working group” on vaccine passports starts work – in secret
EDRi's member Statewatch shares that discussions amongst EU member states on how to approach plans for digital vaccination certificates are taking place in a new "ad-hoc working group", a format that is not likely to foster transparency - particularly given that the group has said it will not be keeping "minutes as such".
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EU’s AI proposal must go further to prevent surveillance and discrimination
The European Commission has just launched the EU draft regulation on artificial intelligence (AI). AI systems are being increasingly used in all areas of life – to monitor us at protests, to identify us for access to health and public services, to make predictions about our behaviour or how much ‘risk’ we pose. Without clear safeguards, these systems could further the power imbalance between those who develop and use AI and those who are subject to them.
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Civil society calls for stronger protections for fundamental rights in Artificial Intelligence law
In light of the recently leaked draft of the Regulation on A European Approach For Artificial Intelligence from January 2021 , EDRi and 14 of our members signed an open letter to the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to underline the importance of ensuring the necessary protections for fundamental rights in the new regulation.
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EDRi-gram, 7 April 2021
Reflecting on the increased challenges to our digital rights, we realised how imperative it is that the field truly reflects everyone in European society. This means improving representation in the digital rights field, but more crucially undoing the power structures preventing us from protecting digital rights for everybody. Approaching digital rights through the lens of decoloniality invites us to interrogate how digital space is occupied, the people who are displaced, and the mechanisms of extraction it requires to exist. This process requires extra work, extra care, extra patience, extra humility as we interrogate that what seems natural.
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Evidence shows a European future that is dystopian: #ReclaimYourFace now to protect your city
The latest evidence shows that biometric mass surveillance is rapidly being developed and deployed in Europe without a proper legal basis or respect for our agency as self-determined and autonomous individuals. No one is safe, as our most sensitive data like our faces, eyes, skin, palm veins, and fingerprints are being tracked, traced and analysed on social media, in the park, on the bus, or at work.
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The Need for a Council of Europe Recommendation on Combatting SLAPPs
104 civil society organisations call on the Council of Europe (CoE) to act urgently on the growing threat of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs).
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Coalition of human rights and journalist organisations express concerns for free speech
On 25 March, 61 human rights and journalist organisations sent a joint letter to Members of the European Parliament, urging them to vote against the proposed Regulation on addressing the dissemination of terrorist content online.
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Stop Spying on Asylum Seekers!
How would you feel if the government was literally able to cut off your access to your cash, because your buying habits were deemed suspicious? That's the reality for many UK based asylum seekers, spied on by the Home Office through their 'Aspen Card', the debit payment card they rely on for their basic subsistence and survival. Join our member Privacy International in their efforts to stop the government's harmful practices of spying on some of the most vulnerable members of our society.
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No faces left to hack: #ReclaimYourFace Now!
We cannot let power-hungry and profit-orientated technologies manipulate our future, take away our dignity and treat us like walking, breathing barcodes. We have the right to exercise our autonomy and self-determination free from abusive practices undermining our agency. The Reclaim Your Face’s ECI empowers Europeans to move and shape the public debate on the use of these AI-powered biometric technologies. The EU has the chance to show that people sit at the center of its values, by taking the lead to ban biometric mass surveillance that endangers our freedoms, democracies and futures.
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Campaign against surveillance: Nobody will tell you when they will follow you
The rapid growth of new technologies has been of “benefit” to secret services. However, it seems that the law has lacked behind showing its inability to reflect the new methods of surveillance used by secret services around the world. EDRi's member Panoptykon Foundation has launched a campaign in Poland to show the problem of unscrutinised powers of secret services.
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The EU should regulate AI on the basis of rights, not risks
EDRi's member Access Now explains why the upcoming legislative proposal on AI should be a rights-based law, like the GDPR. The European Commission must not compromise our rights by substituting a mere risk mitigation exercise by the very actors with a vested interest in rolling out this technology.
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EDRi-gram, 24 March 2021
Human rights mustn’t come second in the race to innovate, they should rather define innovations that better humanity. The European Commission’s upcoming proposal may be the last opportunity to prevent harmful uses of AI-powered technologies, many of which are already marginalising Europe’s racialised communities.
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