February 9, 2022 · Publications | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Privacy and confidentiality | Surveillance and data retention

Chat control: 10 principles to defend children in the digital age

The automated scanning of everyone’s private communications, all of the time, constitutes a disproportionate interference with the very essence of the fundamental right to privacy. It can constitute a form of undemocratic mass surveillance, and can have severe and unjustified repercussions on many other fundamental rights and freedoms, too.

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July 31, 2013 · Blogs

ENDitorial: Belgian railways – a case study in bad internet security

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [ ENDitorial: Belgische Bahn – ein Paradebeispiel für mangelnde Sicherheit im Internet | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_11.15_ENDitorial_Belgische_Bahn_ein%20Paradebeispiel_fuer_mangelnde_Sicherheit_im_Internet?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20130731 ] Earlier this year, we reported on the major data leak that was suffered by Belgian railways. Following the release of the data – including names, email addresses and even, in some cases, phone […]

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February 6, 2024 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Cross border access to data | Surveillance and data retention

Automated data exchange in Prüm II: The EU’s securitisation mindset keeps encroaching on our fundamental rights

The agreement on automated data exchange for police cooperation, known as ‘Prüm II aligns with a broader EU trend of laws prioritising national security over human rights. The final text of this regulation has insufficient fundamental rights safeguards and could even encourage more member states to adopt facial recognition technology. The EU Parliament must reject the current Prüm II Regulation in the upcoming plenary vote.

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August 28, 2013 · Blogs

Data privacy issues following PRISM affair

The PRISM scandal has brought forth a series of issues related to the protection of the European citizens’ data and reactions calling for measure to prevent spying on these data. As the EU is currently updating its data privacy legislation, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, the German justice minister, believes the EU needs a new set of data […]

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October 8, 2003

French DPA against tracking of passenger movements

The French Data Protection Authority, the CNIL, considers the current use of chip-cards for public transport a serious danger for privacy. The cards combine identity-data with travel data like point of entrance to the subway, date and time, and even exact route in case the passenger switches route halfway. In its recommendation of 16 September, […]

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March 15, 2021 · Blogs | Highlights | Information democracy | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Biometrics | Data protection standards | Surveillance and data retention

116 MEPs agree – we need AI red lines to put people over profit

In light of the upcoming proposal for the regulation of artificial intelligence in Europe, 116 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have written to the European Commission’s leaders in support of EDRi’s letter calling for red lines on uses of AI that compromise fundamental rights.

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April 20, 2022 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Profiling practices | Surveillance and data retention

Europol’s reform: A future data black hole in European policing

The European Parliament is soon due to vote on the powers expansion of the European Union’s law enforcement agency, Europol. Civil society has been extremely critical of Europol’s mandate revision, raising many concerns with regards to the lack of fundamental rights protections and policymakers’ blind and absolute trust in how the agency will use its new powers. All the more reasons to be worried: the result of the trilogue negotiations with the Council of the EU made it even worse.

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November 20, 2024 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Online tracking industry / AdTech | Surveillance and data retention

Promises unkept: The EU-US Data Privacy Framework under fire

A decade after Snowden’s revelations — and despite the public outrage they sparked — surveillance and mass data collection continue under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF), despite persistent privacy concerns. This shift reflects a reorientation of EU priorities toward economic and geopolitical interests, risking compromises on privacy and data protection.

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October 8, 2003

Protest against super database in Romania

Human rights experts in Romania issued harsh criticism at the government resolution adopted last week to set up an Integrated Information System (SII), as they consider it as extremely dense, imprecise and giving room to arbitrary interpretation. The SII is a database that will centralise the information held by all public institutions regarding natural and […]

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April 6, 2022 · Blogs | On the ground | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Online tracking industry / AdTech | Surveillance and data retention

Spying on couriers and AdTech using data from operators. We know the winners of the Czech Big Brother Awards

For the seventeenth time has the Czech NGO and EDRi member Iuridicum Remedium (IuRe) awarded Big Brother Awards to those who have been snooping the most into our privacy in the past year.

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May 11, 2022 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Platform regulation | Privacy and confidentiality | Surveillance and data retention

Private and secure communications attacked by European Commission’s latest proposal

On 11 May, the European Commission put forward a proposal for a ‘Regulation laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse’ to replace the interim legislation that EDRi fought against last year. In our immediate reaction, EDRi warned that the new proposal creates major risks for the privacy, security and integrity of private communications, not just in the EU, but globally. Here, we unpack a bit more about the legislative proposal, and why we are so concerned.

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January 13, 2022 · Blogs | Open letters | Privacy and data protection | Cross border access to data | Data protection standards

Nearly 130 public interest organisations and experts urge the United Nations to include human rights safeguards in proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty

Today, EDRi, our member Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and Human Rights Watch, along with nearly 130 organizations and academics working in 56 countries, regions, or globally, urged members of the Ad Hoc Committee responsible for drafting a potential United Nations Cybercrime Treaty to ensure human rights protections are embedded in the final product. The first session of the Ad Hoc Committee will begin on January 17th. 

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