Outsourcing crime control: How EU anti-money laundering rules threaten financial privacy
Privacy First is drawing attention to the risks to financial privacy and fundament rights arising from the European Union’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) framework. Over the past decade, the EU has increasingly shifted the responsibility of detecting financial crime from public authorities to banks, bookkeepers and other companies (called“obliged entities”). With a completely revised AML Package set to enter into force in mid-2027, this system will expand further, turning ordinary citizens and civil society organisations into subjects of systems of financial surveillance.
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Outsourcing crime control: How EU anti-money laundering rules threaten financial privacy
Privacy First is drawing attention to the risks to financial privacy and fundament rights arising from the European Union’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) framework. Over the past decade, the EU has increasingly shifted the responsibility of detecting financial crime from public authorities to banks, bookkeepers and other companies (called“obliged entities”). With a completely revised AML Package set to enter into force in mid-2027, this system will expand further, turning ordinary citizens and civil society organisations into subjects of systems of financial surveillance.
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Breaking the extractive digital business model: a rights-based Digital Fairness Act
EDRi’s new position paper addresses the growing threat of manipulative and unfair platform design in the EU’s digital environment. It examines how deceptive interfaces, exploitative personalisation, and addictive design practices are embedded in today’s digital economy and why existing laws fail to tackle their structural roots. Grounded in a rights-based analysis, the paper argues that the Digital Fairness Act must deliver systemic change by embedding fairness by design and by default into the digital infrastructure that shapes our lives.
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Fighting for algorithmic justice: lessons learned in working closely with affected people
Bits of Freedom shares lessons learned while working on “Amsterdam Top400”, an invasive municipality project which involved the use of predictive policing and led to unwanted interference in the private lives of young people. Together with a coalition of professionals from different background and affected individuals, they explored the possibility of holding the municipality of Amsterdam accountable for violations of children’s rights, data protection law, and fundamental freedoms.
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New research reveals how Snapchat uses notifications to manipulate users
A new study by Bits of Freedom shows that Snapchat sends users misleading notifications. This is banned under the Digital Services Act which prohibits misleading and manipulative design on online platforms. The results of this study make for important input into possible DSA enforcement actions and support including rules about attention-grabbing notifications in the upcoming Digital Fairness Act.
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CNAF’s discriminatory scoring algorithm: 10 new organisations join the case before the Conseil d’État in France
10 organisation, including EDRi, have joined an ongoing coalition effort to challenge the discriminatory algorithms used by the family branch of the French welfare system (CNAF). In the current deregulation spree by the European Commission, this legal action represents resistance to the rollback of fundamental rights protections and the increase of rights infringing legislation. Read an update about the strengthened coalition and the legal action they have taken so far.
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Avoiding regulation of biometric surveillance and loyalty applications: The 20th Big Brother Awards took place in the Czech Republic
For the twentieth time, the Czech organization and EDRi member IuRe (Iuridicum Remedium) awarded prizes to the greatest snoopers.
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Pre-travel controls: Digitalising travel documents
We are responding to a public consultation on the European Commissions’ digitalising travel documents proposal. This proposal promises convenience in travel but could pave the way for biometric mass surveillance and automated discrimination.
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Deported for reporting a crime: the paradox of securitisation policies
The review of the Return Directive, which governs detention and deportation procedures in the EU, should not lead to the criminalisation of undocumented people. Rather, it should uphold their fundamental right to personal data protection by establishing firewalls that allow them to report crimes without fears of being deported.
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Rushed EU eID Wallet risks privacy and security: Calls for safeguards are getting ignored in hasty eIDAS implementation
From a visit to the doctor to public transport tickets , the European eID will handle our most sensitive personal data in a wide range of every-day applications. Yet, speed seems more important to the European Commission than a properly functioning eID system that is safe & secure to use.
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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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The colonial biometric legacy at heart of new EU asylum system
On Wednesday (10 April), the EU is set to vote on a new set of asylum and migration reforms. Among the many controversial changes proposed in the new migration pact, one went almost unnoticed — a seemingly innocent reform of the EU's asylum database, EURODAC. Although framed as purely technical adjustments, the reality is far more malicious. The changes to EURODAC will massively exacerbate violence against people on the move.
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Encryption discussion during the 8 December trial: from myth to reality
The defendents’ fundamental right to privacy was treated flippantly and shown little interest by the judges and prosecution of the Paris criminal court in the ‘8 December’ trial hearings. This is a cause for concern and could lead to the justification of police’s ever-increasing surveillance.
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