Biometrics
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Civil society calls for AI red lines in the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence proposal
European Digital Rights together with 61 civil society organisations have sent an open letter to the European Commission demanding red lines for the applications of AI that threaten fundamental rights.
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Press release: EDRi network launches public initiative against biometric mass surveillance
On 7 January, the European Commission registered a new European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), the ‘Civil society initiative for a ban on biometric mass surveillance practices’.
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Statement: civil society challenges EU plans to expand biometric mass surveillance
On 9 December, the European Commission presented its new Security Union package, composed of the Counter-Terrorism Agenda and a proposal to strengthen the mandate of Europol. Originally intended for next year, the release of the Counter-Terrorism was accelerated due to recent attacks in France and Austria. When it comes to protecting fundamental rights from intrusive biometric surveillance, the proposals fall seriously short.
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The slippery slope of COVID health passports
There is increasing talk of measures that allow or restrict passengers at the departure gate based on health data. Can you show proof of vaccination? Then you may pass. Do you have a recent, negative test result? Then you may enter. Are you unable or unwilling to show these? Then you are denied access. There’s an understandable rationale that underpins these scenarios: we want to create a safe environment. Yet it is also cause for great concern.
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Reclaiming faces and public spaces!
The Reclaim Your Face movement is growing, and our demands for transparency, limiting the accepted uses and respect for humans are becoming more and more common across Europe. New organisations are joining the coalition each week, and people across Europe continue to sign the petition to add their voices to our demands. Now, thanks to campaigning by Homo Digitalis in Greece and Bits of Freedom in the Netherlands, we’re getting closer to real political and legislative changes that will protect our faces and our public spaces from biometric mass surveillance.
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Looking back at digital rights in the era of a surveillance pandemic
2020 started as a year to build momentum to tackle various digital rights issues, including mass surveillance and freedom of expression online. Needless to say, the global pandemic disrupted not only these efforts but also our health, personal relations, basic survival needs and ways to organise around human rights. After 9 months of living and working in a pandemic, we look back at what we achieved and the ways forward from here.
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10,000 people demand a ban on biometric mass surveillance
Reclaim Your Face is a European movement to bring people’s voices into the discussion around the use of biometric data to monitor the population. Since its launch only two weeks ago, over 10,000 people have signed their support by adding their name to the call for transparency, red lines, and respect for humans in European uses of biometrics.
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Campaign “Reclaim Your Face” calls for a Ban on Biometric Mass Surveillance
Civil society across Europe launches the “Reclaim Your Face” campaign, demanding that local and national authorities listen to their communities about the serious risks of using facial recognition and other biometric technologies in public spaces. The newly formed coalition calls to ban biometric mass surveillance, in reaction to the rapid and secretive roll out of invasive and unlawful technologies by police forces and local authorities in many European countries.
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Booklet: Technological testing grounds, border tech is experimenting with people’s lives
The European Union is increasingly experimenting with high risk migration management technologies.
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Attention EU regulators: we need more than AI “ethics” to keep us safe
In this post, Access Now and European Digital Rights (EDRi) analyse recent developments in the EU AI debate and explain why we need a bold, bright-line approach that prioritises our fundamental rights.
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People, not experiments: why cities must end biometric surveillance
We debated the use of facial recognition in cities with the policy makers and law enforcement officials who actually use it. The discussion got to the heart of EDRi’s warnings that biometric surveillance puts limits on everyone’s rights and freedoms, amplifies discrimination, and treats all of us as experimental test subjects. This techno-driven democratic vacuum must be stopped.
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EDRi-gram, 14 October 2020
The public are being treated as experimental test subjects: across these examples, it is clear that members of the public are being used as subjects in high-stakes experiments which can have real-life impacts on their freedom, access to public services, and sense of security.
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