Surveillance and data retention
Filter resources
-
Your face rings a bell: Three common uses of facial recognition
Not all applications of facial recognition are created equal. In this third installment, we sift through the hype to analyse three increasingly common uses of facial recognition: tagging pictures on Facebook, automated border control gates, and police surveillance.
Read more
-
Our New Year’s wishes for European Commissioners
EDRi wishes all readers a happy new year 2020! In 2019, we had a number of victories in multiple fields. The European Parliament added necessary safeguards to the proposed Terrorist Content Online (TCO) Regulation to protect fundamental rights against overly broad and disproportionate censorship measures. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled […]
Read more
-
Indiscriminate data retention considered disproportionate, once again
EDRi’s initial reaction on the press release of the AG Opinion on data retention Today’s Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) Advocate General’s Opinions continue the firmly established case-law of the CJEU considering mass collection of individuals communications data incompatible with EU law. The Advocate General reaffirms that blanket retention of telecommunication data […]
Read more
-
Austrian government hacking law is unconstitutional
On 11 December 2019, the Austrian Constitutional Court decided that the surveillance law that permits the use of spying software to read encrypted messages violates the fundamental right to respect for private life (article 8 ECHR), the fundamental right to data protection (§ 1 Austrian data protection law) and the constitutionally granted right that prohibits unreasonable searches (Art 9 Austrian bill of rights – Staatsgrundgesetz).
Read more
-
Bits of Freedom celebrates its 20th anniversary
EDRi member Bits of Freedom celebrates its 20 year anniversary. Bits of Freedom believes an open and just society is only possible when people can participate in public life without fear of repercussions. For this, every person needs to be free to share information and their private life needs to be respected. The right to […]
Read more
-
The many faces of facial recognition in the EU
In this second installment of EDRi's facial recognition and fundamental rights series, we look at how different EU Member States, institutions and other countries worldwide are responding to the use of this tech in public spaces.
Read more
-
Casual attitude in intelligence sharing is troubling
A recent report by Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service CTIVD shows that the Dutch secret services regularly violate the law when sharing intelligence with foreign services. For the sake of privacy and freedom of communication, it is crucial that data sharing safeguards are both tightened and more strictly enforced.
Read more
-
Facial recognition and fundamental rights 101
This is the first post in a series about the fundamental rights impacts of facial recognition. Private companies and governments worldwide are already experimenting with facial recognition technology. Individuals, lawmakers, developers - and everyone in between - should be aware of the rise of facial recognition, and the risks it poses to rights to privacy, freedom, democracy and non-discrimination.
Read more
-
Serbia: Unlawful facial recognition video surveillance in Belgrade
On 3 December 2019, EDRi member SHARE Foundation, together with two other organisations, published a policy brief concerning a new “smart video-surveillance system” in Belgrade. The brief highlights that the impact assessment of video surveillance on human rights, conducted by the Serbian Ministry of Interior did not meet the legal requirements, and the installation of […]
Read more
-
New Protocol on cybercrime: cutting red tape ≠ cutting human rights safeguards
From 20 to 22 November 2019, European Digital Rights (EDRi) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) took part in the Octopus Conference 2019 at the Council of Europe (CoE) to present the comments submitted by EFF, EDRi, IT-Pol Denmark and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) on draft provisions of the Second Additional Protocol to […]
Read more
-
“E-evidence”: Repairing the unrepairable
On 11 November 2019, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Birgit Sippel (S&D), Rapporteur for the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) presented her draft Report, attempting to fix the many flaws of the European Commission’s “e-evidence” proposal. Has Sippel MEP been successful at repairing the unrepairable? The initial e-evidence proposal by […]
Read more
-
Danish data retention: Back to normal after major crisis
The Danish police and the Ministry of Justice consider access to electronic communications data to be a crucial tool for investigation and prosecution of criminal offences. Legal requirements for blanket data retention, which originally transposed the EU Data Retention Directive, are still in place in Denmark, despite the judgments from the Court of Justice of […]
Read more