December 15, 2021 · Blogs | Highlights | Privacy and data protection

2021: Looking back at digital rights in the year of resilience

We started 2021, hoping to leave the tremendously challenging year of 2020 behind. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on our societies, causing unprecedented harm to people and economies. If 2020 was the year of the pandemic shock, 2021 was the year of resilience. We had to learn to live in a constant uncertainty of what it would take to keep defending human rights: Could we work and walk down the streets without being constantly surveilled? Would efforts to tackle disinformation distort legitimate content, or would they bring down Big Tech instead? Will 2022 be 2021 2.0? 

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December 1, 2021 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Cross border access to data | Surveillance and data retention

EU ropes in intelligence agencies for enhanced border checks targeting Afghan nationals

Intensified border security checks targeting Afghan nationals have been agreed by the Council of the EU, with the procedures requiring the extraction of mobile phone data and significant coordination with national intelligence agencies – despite the EU having no competences in the realm of “national security”.

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September 9, 2015 · Blogs

EDRi identifies key challenges to freedom of expression online

On 13 November 2014, EDRi met with the European External Action Service (EEAS) for a civil society consultation on the EU Human Rights Guidelines on Freedom of Expression Online and Offline. The EEAS aims at improving the Guidelines in the future and was seeking input to that end. EDRi had already outlined its position in […]

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October 18, 2017 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Surveillance and data retention

Success Story: A win on Austrian surveillance legislation

The security debate in many countries shows an alarming trend towards restrictions of fundamental rights that liberal societies have codified in the past centuries. Particularly in the field of surveillance, recent legislation often goes beyond what has been deemed constitutional by courts and lacks any fact-based justification as to how those measures are supposed to […]

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February 21, 2023 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Privacy and confidentiality | Surveillance and data retention

PEGA Committee must call for an EU-wide ban on spyware

The European Parliament’s inquiry committee on Pegasus and other similar spyware (PEGA) is working on a set of recommendations for the regulation of the use of intrusive spyware by EU Member States. It is still unclear whether the Committee will dare to set vitally needed red lines and call for a sufficiently protective European Union-wide framework against spyware in its non-binding report. EDRi submitted amendments to strengthen the demands for the protection of affected people and democratic values.

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October 9, 2024 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Biometrics | Surveillance and data retention

Biometric surveillance in the Czech Republic: the Ministry of the Interior is trying to circumvent the Artificial Intelligence Act

EDRi-member Iuridicum Remedium draws attention to the way biometric surveillance at airports should be legalised in the Czech Republic. According to the proposal, virtually anyone could become a person under surveillance. Moreover, surveillance could be extended from airports to other public spaces.

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September 7, 2016 · Blogs

What digital rights are at imminent risk? All of them.

Our civil rights in the digital environment are based on our rights to protect our personal security and data, our right to communicate freely, and our right for any restrictions to be necessary, predictable and proportionate. Every one of these rights is now under imminent threat.

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July 30, 2008 · Blogs

EDRi receives a 15Keuros donation from XS4ALL and its customers

In the beginning of May 2008, a critical network error caused an Internet blackout for a great number of people in the Netherlands. The problem, by some said to be the biggest in internet history in Holland, caused over a hundred thousand DSL lines to be disconnected for up to four days, among them many […]

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November 16, 2022 · Blogs | Open internet and inclusive technology | Privacy and data protection | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Data protection standards | Inclusive technologies | Surveillance and data retention

People working in the Czech media do not trust technology companies, they are also con­cerned about artificial intelligence decision-making

These findings come as a result of a survey conducted in the summer of 2022 as part of the Promoting human rights in the digital era project. The digital legal organisation and an EDRi member in the Czech Republic IuRe (Iuridicum Remedium) also took part.

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July 30, 2008

Serbian Telecom Agency publishes Internet traffic interception rules

Serbia’s Republic Agency for Telecommunications (RATEL) published on 21 July 2008 a document of Instructions for Technical Requirements for Subsystems, Devices, Hardware and Installation of Internet Networks. The document explains the technical requirements for authorized monitoring of some telecom services and provides a list of obligations for the telecom operators. According with the present text, […]

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September 20, 2016 · Blogs

EU is now giving Google new monopolies

Originally published on The European Sting There is a lot of noise in the press and among lobbyists about an alleged hostility of the EU towards big American internet companies. Reality is more nuanced and more surprising – the policies appear to be hell-bent on giving Google new monopolies, to the detriment of European citizens […]

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November 15, 2017 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Platform regulation | Surveillance and data retention

Who defends the victims of mass surveillance? Tech companies could

Two clocks are ticking for US tech companies in the power centers of the modern world. In Washington, lawmakers are working to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702 before it expires on 31 December 2017. Section 702 is the main legal basis for US mass surveillance, including the programs and techniques that […]

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