Our work
EDRi is the biggest European network defending rights and freedoms online. We work to to challenge private and state actors who abuse their power to control or manipulate the public. We do so by advocating for robust and enforced laws, informing and mobilising people, promoting a healthy and accountable technology market, and building a movement of organisations and individuals committed to digital rights and freedoms in a connected world.
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EDRi-gram, 1 July 2026
What has the EDRi network been up to over the past few weeks? Find out the latest digital rights news in our bi-weekly newsletter. In this edition: The heat is on
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Now or never: why the Digital Euro must not fail on privacy
Europe is developing a Digital Euro to reduce its reliance on US-controlled payment systems and give citizens a privacy-friendly digital payment option. Epicenter.works and other civil society groups support the project but argue that strong privacy protections must be built into its technology, not just promised on paper, to ensure public trust and protect fundamental rights. The vote of the ECON Committee signals a move in the right direction, which must not be weakened in the remainder of the legislative process.
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Slovenia’s democracy under siege: An urgent update
Following the March 2026 elections, Slovenia's newly appointed right-wing coalition government – led by Janez Janša in his fourth term – has launched an aggressive crackdown on independent civil society. Janša’s return follows a turbulent campaign marred by the Black Cube scandal involving an Israeli intelligence firm. Now, his administration is moving fast to radicalise politics, using tactics that also threaten broader EU democratic standards. This poses danger to civil society, fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens, and will also have a significant impact on the protection of digital rights in Slovenia.
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The EU spends billions on AI, but can anyone track the money?
The European Union has pledged billions to establish itself as a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI). However, there is a significant transparency gap between the political announcements and the actual flow of money. ‘From Frameworks to Factories’, a new report by Open Future , maps the EU's AI investment architecture and asks a simple question: Can the money be followed?
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EDRi Annual Report 2025: Championing digital rights in the deregulation era
In 2025, the EU entered an era of deregulation in which hard-fought digital rights protections are being diluted. With our long-term vision for digital futures in mind, EDRi's work in 2025 focused on protecting digital rights legislation and advocating for human-centred perspectives. We also adopted our new agile and responsive strategy which will guide our work for the next five years.
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Civil society launches demands for a just and flourishing digital Europe at Summit with Zuboff, MEP Benifei, DuckDuckGo, after guerrilla projection stunt in Brussels
On 23 June 2026, 13 civil society organisations – including EDRi – launched “Make It Real: Calls to Action for a Flourishing and Just Digital Europe”, a publication outlining concrete recommendations to EU lawmakers to safeguard fundamental rights, democratic accountability and fair competition in the digital economy. The launch took place at the “Fight for Us, Not for Them” Summit featuring eminent speakers like Professor Shoshana Zuboff, scholar, activist and author of ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’, Brando Benifei, Member of the European Parliament, and more. The event comes after the European Council meeting on 18-19 June, for which EDRi co-organised a visual protest to raise the alarm against Big tech lobbying.
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Cookies and consent: why ePrivacy matters for our browsing life
The Commission’s Digital Omnibus proposal reopens an important debate on ePrivacy and how choices are made when browsing the internet. With this leaflet, we cut through the jargon and explain what cookies, tracking technologies, consent and ePrivacy mean in everyday life, helping you to understand the issues at stake and the opportunities that lie ahead.
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AI Omnibus deal: EU lawmakers should reject a rollback of AI safeguards
On 7 May 2026, EU institutions reached a final deal on the AI Omnibus, a file presented as technical simplification of the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act). In practice, the deal delays key protections, weakens transparency and creates a dangerous precedent for the EU digital rulebook. The European Parliament and the Council of the EU should reject it.
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Statement: End complicity with ISS World Europe
ISS World Europe is an annual surveillance industry trade fair where the most invasive technologies for mass surveillance, data harvesting and tracking of individuals are traded and promoted. Such a marketplace for digital repression tools, connected to companies directly involved in war crimes, human rights violations, and the genocide in Gaza, should have no place in the EU. Civil society is calling on the EU to immediately cut ties with ISS World Europe.
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What’s behind the EU’s digitalisation push? Surveillance, control and exclusion
The EU institutions have been engaged in a broad and wholesale digitalisation project but underneath the rhetoric of efficiency, modernisation, and citizen empowerment lies a more troubling reality. It is not a mere technical upgrade of public services, but a political choice, long in the making, to forego care and rights of individuals in favour of normalising surveillance, control and exclusion of the most marginalised. This blog explores the various facets of the EU’s digital welfare state push, and what it means for the relationship between people and the state.
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A push back to Czech football club‘s plan to install facial recognition CCTV system
There is a debate in the Czech Republic over the use of facial recognition cameras in stadiums. Both clubs and politicians are calling for biometric surveillance after hundreds of fans stormed the football pitch during a recent match. The debate has unfolded with pushbacks from the public opinion and digital rights groups, including IuRe, while government officials are still considering the implementation of biometric system regardless of their illegality.
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Inside Italy’s low-cost spyware economy
Commercial spyware in Europe has recently made headlines with the now notorious names of Pegasus and Graphite, the expensive, exploitation-driven products at the top end of the market. Much less known is the wide underworld ecosystem of low-cost spyware vendors, often targeting citizens via their smartphones. EDRi member Osservatorio Nessuno has investigated and analysed two separate products, Spyrtacus and Morpheus.
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