January 15, 2004

PNR: Bolkestein misleads European Parliament

Commissioner Frits Bolkestein concealed important details on the draft agreement reached with the USA on the transfer of Passenger Name Record Data (PNR) to the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection when reporting to two Committees of the European Parliament four weeks ago. This is what Bolkestein’s spokesman Jonathan Todd has admitted in an […]

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

Digital Services Act: The EDRi guide to 2,297 amendment proposals

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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October 15, 2022 · Blogs | Highlights | Press releases | Privacy and data protection | Privacy and confidentiality | Surveillance and data retention

News from Ireland question effectiveness and lawfulness of online scanning for tackling child sexual abuse: Lessons for the EU

An investigation in Ireland published today shows that tools for scanning private communications to detect child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online suffer not only from low accuracy and high rates of false alarms but have led to people’s data and privacy being put in danger without reasonable suspicion.

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October 25, 2023 · Blogs | Press mentions | Privacy and data protection | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Surveillance and data retention

Unchecked AI will lead us to a police state

Across Europe, police, migration and security authorities are seeking to develop and use AI in increasing contexts. From the planned use of AI-based video surveillance at the 2024 Paris Olympics, to the millions of EU funds invested in AI based surveillance at Europe’s borders, AI systems are more and more part of the state surveillance infrastructure.

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January 15, 2020 · Blogs | Open internet and inclusive technology | Privacy and data protection | Biometrics | Profiling practices | Surveillance and data retention

Your face rings a bell: Three common uses of facial recognition

Not all applications of facial recognition are created equal. In this third installment, we sift through the hype to analyse three increasingly common uses of facial recognition: tagging pictures on Facebook, automated border control gates, and police surveillance.

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June 2, 2021 · Blogs | Campaigns | Information democracy | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Biometrics | Surveillance and data retention

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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June 4, 2008

Social networking sites might be regulated in EU

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) On 27 May 2008, the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) called for new legislation that would regulate social networking sites. ENISA, which was created in 2004 to oversee online security measures in the 27 EU countries, issued a preliminary report of its General Report in […]

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December 18, 2003

Hustinx new EU data protection commissioner

Peter Hustinx, the Dutch data protection commissioner, will be elected today as the new EU data protection commissioner. The Conference of Presidents, composed of the heads of the Political Groups in the European Parliament, decided to back-down from their original idea to give the position to the Spanish magistrate Joaquín Bayo Delgado. He will now […]

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January 15, 2004

Schengen information system goes biometric

With the planned inclusion of two biometric identifiers into EU Member States’ passports and ID Cards as well as Visa to the EU, it was only a question of time when the first plans to store these identifiers in an EU-wide database would be announced. The announcement came shortly before Christmas: Biometric data will, according […]

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October 24, 2018 · Blogs | Open internet and inclusive technology | Equal access to the internet | Freedom of expression online | Privacy and confidentiality | Surveillance and data retention

New standards for networking challenge regulators & digital rights

On 17 October, the European body of telecommunications regulators (BEREC) organised a stakeholder meeting in Brussels, inviting industry, consumers, regulators and citizens’ rights groups to reflect on the BEREC Work Programme 2019.

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January 27, 2021 · Blogs | Campaigns | Highlights | Privacy and data protection | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Biometrics | Data protection standards | Profiling practices | Surveillance and data retention

ReclaimYourFace activates the public and civil society to ban biometric mass surveillance

The EDRi network and partners launched the first phase of the Reclaim Your Face campaign, which focuses on raising awareness and investigating and challenging abusive uses of facial recognition and other biometric tech at a local and national level, in November 2020. The coalition has achieved several wins in the two months since. However much remains to be done in the movement to reclaim our faces and ban biometric mass surveillance in Europe!

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June 30, 2021 · Blogs | Campaigns | Information democracy | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Biometrics | Surveillance and data retention

The #PaperBagSociety challenge

The #PaperBagSociety is a social media challenge part of the #ReclaimYourFace campaign that invites everyone to share online the impact of living life with a paperbag on the head. With it, we aim to raise awareness of how ridiculous is to avoid facial recognition technologies in public spaces and why we need to build an alternative future, free from biometric mass surveillance.

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