March 11, 2020 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Cross border access to data

Accountable Migration Tech: Transparency, governance and oversight

Migration continues to dominate headlines around the world. For example, given the currently deteriorating situation at the border between Greece and Turkey, with reports of increasingly repressive measures to turn people away, new technologies already play a part in border surveillance and decision-making at the border.

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July 19, 2006

Austria joins Privacy International's SWIFT campaign

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) As previously reported in EDRI-gram the international financial surveillance programme run by the US government and involving the European company SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, based in Belgium) continues to raise discussion in several countries in Europe. According to SWIFT’s Austrian board member, Günther Gall, […]

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February 11, 2009

Data protection framework decision adopted

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) After several years of discussions and debates with the EU bodies, the Framework Decision on the protection of personal data processed in the framework of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters was adopted by the Council and published in the Official Journal on 30 December 2008. […]

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September 22, 2021 · Blogs | Information democracy | Surveillance and data retention

Total surveillance law proposed in Serbia

The public debate on the Draft Law on Internal Affairs has officially introduced into legal procedure provisions for the use of mass biometric surveillance in public spaces in Serbia, advanced technologies equipped with facial recognition software that enable capturing and processing of large amounts of sensitive personal data in real time. EDRi's member the SHARE Foundation has used the opportunity of the Draft Law public debate to submit its legal comments on the provisions regulating mass biometric surveillance in public spaces, demanding from the authorities to declare a moratorium on the use of such technologies and systems in Serbia without delay.

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November 16, 2022 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Privacy and confidentiality | Surveillance and data retention

Activists v. Poland. European Court of Human Rights hearing on uncontrolled surveillance

On 27 September, the hearing was held at the European Court of Human Rights, following the application against Poland lodged by activists from Poland’s Panoptykon Foundation and Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, joined by a human rights attorney.

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October 9, 2024 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Biometrics | Profiling practices | Surveillance and data retention

Surveilling Europe’s edges: when digitalisation means dehumanisation

In May 2024, Access Now’s Caterina Rodelli travelled across Greece to meet with local civil society organisations supporting migrant people and monitoring human rights violations, and to see first-hand how and where surveillance technologies are deployed at Europe’s borders. In the first of a three-part blog series reflecting on what she saw, Caterina explains how, all too often, digitalising borders dehumanises the people trying to cross them.

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July 16, 2008

ENDitorial: Massive mobilization against EDVIGE, the new French database

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) Remember the movie ‘Das Leben der Anderen’ (The Lives of Others), where a Stasi agent was monitoring a playwriter’s life? This doesn’t translate anymore in French into ‘La vie des autres’, but rather into EDVIGE, the name of a newly created database to be used by French […]

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December 5, 2012

Netherlands: legislation for forced decryption announced

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Niederlande: Zwang zur Entschlüsselung geplant | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_10.23_Niederlande_Zwang_zur_Entschluesselung_geplant?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20121205] The Dutch Minister of Justice has sent a letter to the House of Representatives announcing a proposal for legislation that will allow the police to force a suspect to decrypt information that is under investigation in a case of terrorism or […]

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June 2, 2004

Polish proposal to demand ID for pre-paid cards

Revising the Polish Telecommunication Act to implement the EU e-communication directives, the Polish Ministry of Infrastructure introduced a new obligation for mandatory identification of buyers of pre-paid GSM-cards. The proposal is brought as an anti-terrorism measure. State officials immediately acknowledged that the ID-demand would not make pre-paid cards totally anonymous, referring to the vivid trade […]

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December 5, 2012

German government proposes extended tracking of Internet users

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Deutsche Regierung plant ausufernde Überwachung der Internetuser | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_10.23_Deutsche_Regierung_plant_ausufernde_Ueberwachung_der_Internetuser?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20121205] The German government is proposing an amendment to the Telecommunication Act that would allow law enforcement and intelligence agencies to extensively identify Internet users, without any court order or reasonable suspicion of a crime. The proposed amendment comes as […]

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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 […]

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September 30, 2020 · EDRi-gram | Highlights

EDRi-gram, 30 September 2020

"Biometric mass surveillance is tremendously invasive and inhumane. It allows an invisible, permanent and massive control of the public space. It makes everybody a suspect. It turns our face into a tracking device, rather than a signifier of personality, eventually reducing it to a technical object."

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