October 6, 2015 · Blogs

Fifteen years late, Safe Harbor hits the rocks

Today, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) confirmed what the European Commission has been denying for the past fifteen years – the “Safe Harbor” agreement on transferring data to the United States is invalid. “Safe Harbor was flawed in principle and flawed in practice” said Joe McNamee, Executive Director of European Digital […]

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February 23, 2011

Polish civil society stirs up debate on Internet freedom

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Polnische Zivilgesellschaft treibt Diskussion über die Freiheit des Internets voran | http://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_9.4_Debatte_zu_Internetfreiheit_in_Polen] The Polish chapter in the European debate on whether Internet blocking can be conceived as a measure in fighting the dissemination of child abuse images has finally been opened. This is due to the quite successful […]

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October 6, 2015 · Blogs

Finland: New surveillance law threatens fundamental rights

Finnish EDRi member Electronic Frontier Finland (Effi) is gravely concerned over a draft law on Internet surveillance. The bill that the country’s current government is in the process of preparing will grant the military and the Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Supo) the authority to conduct electronic mass surveillance for military and civilian intelligence purposes. On […]

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January 28, 2019 · On the ground | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Privacy and confidentiality

noyb files eight strategic complaints on “right to access”

A test by EDRi member noyb, a European non-profit organisation for privacy enforcement, shows structural violations of most streaming services. In more than ten test cases noyb was able to identify violations of Article 15 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in many shapes and forms by companies like Amazon, Apple, DAZN, Spotify or […]

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February 24, 2021 · Blogs | EDRi-gram | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Privacy and confidentiality | Surveillance and data retention

Shedding light on the DWP staff guide on conducting fraud investigations

In 2019, the UK Department for Work and Pensions published their two-part staff guide on conducting fraud investigations. Privacy International went through the 995 pages to understand how those investigations happen and how the DWP is surveilling benefits claimants suspected of fraud.

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February 13, 2019 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Cross border access to data

LIBE Committee analysis: Challenges of cross-border access to data

On 7 February, the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) presented two new working documents analysing further the issue of cross-border access to data in criminal matters, also known as “e-evidence”.

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February 10, 2021 · Blogs | EDRi-gram | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Online tracking industry / AdTech | Privacy and confidentiality | Profiling practices

The companies in control of our secret identities

EDRi member Privacy International published a research on ad tech companies' data collection practices which are employed to create an assumed picture of you. The study shows that the profiles created for the data subjects are based on information pieced together from incomplete data and using marketing algorithms. Hence, this data forms an uncanny picture of yourself, one that you may not have voluntarily revealed, a digital shadow over which you have very little practical control.

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September 28, 2022 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Surveillance and data retention

Rather delete than comply: how Europol snubbed data subject rights

On 8 September 2022, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) issued a decision ordering the EU law enforcement agency, Europol, to give Dutch activist Frank van der Linde access to the personal data the agency holds on him following a two-year investigation by the data protection watchdog. Findings of the inspection reveal that Europol tried to cover up the traces of the data processing and to avoid complying with the data access request by deleting van der Linde’s data.

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March 24, 2021 · Blogs | Information democracy | Privacy and confidentiality | Surveillance and data retention

Campaign against surveillance: Nobody will tell you when they will follow you

The rapid growth of new technologies has been of “benefit” to secret services. However, it seems that the law has lacked behind showing its inability to reflect the new methods of surveillance used by secret services around the world. EDRi's member Panoptykon Foundation has launched a campaign in Poland to show the problem of unscrutinised powers of secret services.

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August 16, 2004 · Blogs

Issues

European Digital Rights covers many issues relating to privacy and digital rights, from data retention to copyright and software patents, from the transfer of passenger data to freedom of speech online and the security and privacy problems arising from e-voting. The wide range of topics covered in the bi-weekly newsletter EDRI-gram are thematically organised in […]

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February 21, 2024 · Blogs | Press mentions | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Privacy and confidentiality | Surveillance and data retention

When law enforcement undermines our digital safety, who is looking after our interests?

Imagine your friend sent you a private DM on Twitter. Now imagine, instead of the content remaining for your eyes only, Twitter letting the police also take a peek at it. Such intrusive practices of state actors accessing private messages have grave consequences for our lives. Some people can be physically harmed, and for some, it can mean that their families and friends could get prosecuted. At a collective level, the harm this does to our communities and society at large is immeasurable.

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November 18, 2015 · Blogs

UK Draft Investigatory Powers Bill: Missed opportunity

The UK Government has published a draft of the long-awaited Investigatory Powers Bill. Since the Snowden revelations, civil liberty groups have been calling for a new law that would restrain the UK intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The UK government, however, has been calling for increased surveillance powers since the failure of the draft Communications […]

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