Privacy and data protection

February 26, 2020 · Highlights | Privacy and data protection | Biometrics

ECtHR: UK Police data retention scheme violated the right to privacy

February 26, 2020 · Blogs | Open internet and inclusive technology | Privacy and data protection | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Biometrics | Inclusive technologies | Profiling practices | Surveillance and data retention

Immigration, iris-scanning and iBorderCTRL

Technologies like automated decision-making, biometrics, and unpiloted drones are increasingly controlling migration and affecting millions of people on the move. This second blog post in our series on AI and migration highlights some of these uses, to show the very real impacts on people’s lives, exacerbated by a lack of meaningful governance and oversight mechanisms […]

February 26, 2020 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Cross border access to data | Data protection standards | Surveillance and data retention

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 […]

February 26, 2020 · On the ground | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Surveillance and data retention

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 […]

February 26, 2020 · On the ground | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Privacy and confidentiality

Romania: Mandatory SIM registration declared unconstitutional, again

On 18 February 2020, the Romanian Constitutional Court unanimously declared unconstitutional a new legislative act adopted in September 2019 introducing mandatory SIM card registration. The legislative act in question was an emergency ordinance issued by the Government which wanted to introduce this obligation as a measure “to improve the operation of the 112 emergency service […]

February 19, 2020 · Blogs | Information democracy | Privacy and data protection | Alternatives to dominant digital services | Data protection standards | Equal access to the internet | Freedom of expression online | Inclusive technologies | Platform regulation

The impact of competition law on your digital rights

This is the first article in a series dealing with competition law and Big Tech. The aim of the series is to look at what competition law has achieved when it comes to protecting our digital rights, where it has failed to deliver on its promises, and how to remedy this. This series will first […]

February 19, 2020 · Blogs | Open internet and inclusive technology | Privacy and data protection | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Biometrics | Data protection standards | Profiling practices | Surveillance and data retention

A human-centric internet for Europe

The European Union has set digital transformation as one of its key pillars for the next five years. New data-driven technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), offer societal benefits – but addressing their potential risks to our democratic values, the rule of law, and fundamental rights must be a top priority. “By driving a human rights-centric […]

February 12, 2020 · Highlights | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards

PI and Liberty submit a new legal challenge against MI5

February 12, 2020 · Blogs | Open internet and inclusive technology | Privacy and data protection | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Biometrics | Data protection standards | Equal access to the internet | Inclusive technologies | Profiling practices | Surveillance and data retention

The human rights impacts of migration control technologies

This is the first blogpost of a series on our new project which brings to the forefront the lived experiences of people on the move as they are impacted by technologies of migration control. The project, led by our Mozilla Fellow Petra Molnar, highlights the need to regulate the opaque technological experimentation documented in and […]

February 12, 2020 · Blogs | On the ground | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Transparency

Cloud extraction: A deep dive on secret mass data collection tech

Mobile phones remain the most frequently used and most important digital source for law enforcement investigations. Yet it is not just what is physically stored on the phone that law enforcement are after, but what can be accessed from it, primarily data stored in the “cloud”. This is why law enforcement is turning to “cloud […]

February 12, 2020 · Blogs | Open internet and inclusive technology | Privacy and data protection | Biometrics

Dangerous by design: A cautionary tale about facial recognition

In this fifth and final installment of EDRi's facial recognition and fundamental rights series, we consider an experience of harm caused by fundamentally violatory biometric surveillance technology.

February 12, 2020 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Cross border access to data | Data protection standards | Surveillance and data retention

Double legality check in e-evidence: Bye bye “direct data requests”

After having tabled some 600 additional amendments, members of the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) are still discussing the conditions under which law enforcement authorities in the EU should access data for their criminal investigations in cross-border cases. One of the key areas of debate is the involvement of a second authority in […]