Stay up to date via the EDRi-gram
Published since 2003, twice a month, the EDRi-gram newsletter collects and summarises the most important digital rights news from across our network around Europe
EDRi-gram newsletters
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EDRi-gram, 16 February 2022
In this edition of the EDRi-gram, we put EDRi's affiliate ECNL in the spotlight to take a peek at the fights they are fighting to advance our freedoms online and offline. We're also looking at a comparison between the Western Balkans countries' digital advancement and what the digitalisation of all aspects of life mean citizens' well-being. We're also exploring the Belgian authority's decision that IAB Europe’s consent pop-ups are incompatible with the GDPR, which has been confirmed by 27 data protection authorities from 20 EU countries involved in the cross-border investigation.
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EDRi-gram, 2 February 2022
In this edition of the EDRi-gram, we dive into the secret negotiations about Europol's reform that would enable mass surveillance of people and discriminatory predictive policing. We also take a peek at the European Parliament's approval of a rights-respecting Digital Services Act and its proposal to ban the use of sensitive personal data for online ads.
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EDRi-gram, 19 January 2022
In this first edition of the EDRi-gram for 2022, we look at how people are pushing MEPs to take the opportunity to end surveillance ads. We also explore why it is important for our health data to stay private and how the e-Evidence Regulation threatens the confidentiality of this sensitive information. We also look into what it’s like to have an algorithm as your boss through the stories of millions of people worldwide, working in the gig economy for companies like Uber, Deliveroo, Bolt & Just Eat, who are subjected to unprecedented surveillance.
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EDRi-gram, 15 December 2021
In this last edition of the EDRi-gram for 2021, we look at the good, the bad and the ugly in the much-anticipated Digital Services Act report, approved by the European Parliament IMCO Committee this week. We also take a look back at this year of resilience, reflecting on the impact EDRi and the Reclaim Your Face coalition had on digital rights.
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EDRi-gram, 1 December 2021
In this edition, we tell you how you can take your power back from Big Tech companies and help us create a democratic, fair and open internet for a just society. We are also calling on the EU to put our fundamental rights first in the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA).
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EDRi-gram, 17 November 2021
Check out our joint call to the Portuguese government to oppose a proposed law that tries to sneak in biometric mass surveillance. In this edition, we also explain how Facebook's latest announcement about deleting their facial recognition database demonstrates that voluntary self-regulation from tech giants is superficial and cannot replace actual legislation against these practices. And discuss the shortcomings of Facebook whistleblower's testimony.
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EDRi-gram, 3 November 2021
In this edition of the EDRi-gram, we share EDRi's guide to help Members of the European Parliament make strong human rights choices regarding the Digital Services Act amendments prior to the IMCO vote. We also share the unfortunate news of how Europol's unfettered and problematic data-driven model of policing has been given the green light, which will lead to serious risks of discrimination based on race, socio-economic status or class, and nationality.
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EDRi-gram, 20 October 2021
In this edition of the EDRi-gram, we share the launch of a collection of four scenarios that describe situations involving cross-border access to personal data and explains the necessary safeguards needed in the e-Evidence Proposal to mitigate these fundamental rights harms. We also demonstrate how software embedded in people’s devices can monitor our movements and surveil us, how a ban on surveillance advertising can fix Facebook and a lot more. Also now's your chance to submit your session proposal for the 10th annual Privacy Camp event, happening on January 25, 2022!
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EDRi-gram, 6 October 2021
We celebrate a historic milestone for our human rights as the European Parliament heard what EDRi has been long advocating for and took a bold stand against unacceptably risky uses of AI like biometric mass surveillance and predictive policing. We also cheer for civil society's success in Serbia as community and international pressure forced the government to withdraw its law, threatening to subject people to oppressive and privacy intrusive biometric surveillance.
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EDRi-gram, 22 September 2021
In this EDRi-gram, we challenge the technical ‘debiasing’ as the main solution to AI-driven structural inequality and call on policymakers to tackle the root causes of the power imbalances caused by the pervasive use of AI systems. We also look at how Big Tech platforms are harming users and join forces with EDRi's member Panoptykon Foundation, along with 49 civil rights organisations, to urge the EU to empower users and ensure effective oversight of algorithms in their amendments to the Digital Services Act.
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EDRi-gram, 8 September 2021
In the first post-summer edition of the EDRi-gram, we are excited to announce EDRi's new staff members who have recently become part of the team. Join us in welcoming Fenya Fischler, who will be our Membership and Community Officer & Belén Luna, our new Campaigns Officer! We are also celebrating a big milestone in our signature collection to ban biometric mass surveillance as 60 000 people have signed the #ReclaimYourFace petition (hurray)
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EDRi-gram, 14 July 2021
Whilst EU laws say that each of us is innocent until proven guilty, the prevalence of biometric mass surveillance practices across Europe flips this on its head. Each of us is treated as suspicious until ‘proven’ innocent, by often discriminatory and persecutory deployments of systems that never should have been rolled out in the first place.
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EDRi-gram, 30 June 2021
Covid 19 brought the often invisible power of tech into sharp focus as it fostered the digitalisation of our lives forcing us to rely more heavily on technology to meet all our needs. In response, EDRi emphasised that measures taken should not lead to discrimination of any form, and governments must remain vigilant to the disproportionate harms that marginalised groups can face.
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EDRi-gram, 16 June 2021
Some surveillance technologies are so dangerous that they inevitably cause far more problems than they solve. The use of facial recognition and remote biometric technologies in publicly accessible spaces enables mass surveillance and discriminatory targeted surveillance. In such cases, the potential for abuse is too great, and the consequences too severe. We must ban such practices once and for all.
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EDRi-gram, 2 June 2021
The GDPR is still in its infancy, and while it is too soon to consider revisions to the law, EU regulators and decision-makers have the power to improve enforcement and fulfil its promise for vindicating data protection rights and spurring the development of privacy-protecting business models. The past three years hold important lessons for decision-makers and regulators to leverage to deliver on that promise. A lot is at stake.
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EDRi-gram, 19 May 2021
The increasing use of facial recognition and other biometric surveillance technologies – on our streets, in train stations, at protests, at sports matches and even in our global ‘town square’, Facebook – means that our freedom to be anonymous in public spaces, our freedom to just be, really does face an existential threat. The mask is a symbol of resistance against the growing use of mass facial recognition. Get this symbolic merch and support the work EDRi does.
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EDRi-gram, 5 May 2021
The shady AdTech business model used by Big Tech targets mothers who just had stillbirths with baby ads, and serial gamblers who are trying to quit with gambling ads. EDRi is working to create a better digital future, where people are put before profit. Will you donate to us to help make that happen?
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EDRi-gram, 22 April 2021
Issues of non-discrimination and fundamental rights would have to be at the core of the approach to artificial intelligence, rather than considered after competition and industrial policy. A truly people-centred AI regulation would take a step back and acknowledge the inherent harms AI will perpetuate if deployed for certain purposes.
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EDRi-gram, 7 April 2021
Reflecting on the increased challenges to our digital rights, we realised how imperative it is that the field truly reflects everyone in European society. This means improving representation in the digital rights field, but more crucially undoing the power structures preventing us from protecting digital rights for everybody. Approaching digital rights through the lens of decoloniality invites us to interrogate how digital space is occupied, the people who are displaced, and the mechanisms of extraction it requires to exist. This process requires extra work, extra care, extra patience, extra humility as we interrogate that what seems natural.
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EDRi-gram, 24 March 2021
Human rights mustn’t come second in the race to innovate, they should rather define innovations that better humanity. The European Commission’s upcoming proposal may be the last opportunity to prevent harmful uses of AI-powered technologies, many of which are already marginalising Europe’s racialised communities.
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EDRi-gram, 10 March 2021
Unless we take strong action, people in Europe could soon face the end of our privacy and anonymity in public spaces as we know it. We need to rise against the growing use of sinister, unnecessary and disproportionate technologies in our public spaces which abuse our faces. 34,000+ incredible supporters have already joined the fight by officially signing our formal “European Citizens’ Initiative”. Help us reach one million signatures by spreading the word, mobilising your friends and family and even writing to your national or European Parliamentary representatives.
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EDRi-gram, 24 February 2021
For years, the EDRi network has exposed how people’s most sensitive identifying characteristics like our faces, fingerprints or the way we walk are unlawfully harvested on an industrial scale by European governments and corporations to make unfair judgements about us without our knowledge. Now, with the launch of our Reclaim Your Face campaign’s European Citizens’ Initiative, we are increasing the pressure on lawmakers to put our rights ahead of big businesses’ profits.
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EDRi-gram, 10 February 2021
This edition of the EDRi-gram is jam packed full of national and European insights and examples on how our data and tech is being misused by those in power and what we must do about it! In this edition we showcase another example of how governments in Europe are using discriminatory biometric technologies against marginalised groups. We expose how Big Tech continues to make big profit by expanding into the public sphere, share why breaking encryption would hurt children and adults alike and much more.
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EDRi-gram, 27 January 2021
We hope many of you were able to join us at Privacy Camp 2021 yesterday which brought together 245 academics, activists and privacy experts from across the world. Stay tuned for the key takeaways. In this edition of the EDRi-gram we showcase the mobilisation efforts and victories so far from the #ReclaimYourFace campaign, share Privacy International's research on political ads and much more.
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EDRi-gram, 13 January 2021
How can digital rights best contribute to reclaiming infrastructures, and how can reclaimed infrastructures sustain democratic practices, for a fair, people-centered, digital future in the EU? Join us at Privacy Camp 2021 to find out: https://privacycamp.eu/
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EDRi-gram, 9 December 2020
In this final 2020 edition of the EDRi-gram, our wish is to start 2021 with more energy, momentum and resources to protect our rights and freedoms online. Would you consider donating to help make that happen?
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EDRi-gram, 25 November 2020
On 12 November 2020, 12 organisations from across the EDRi network launched the first ever pan-European civil society movement against biometric mass surveillance: Reclaim Your Face. Over 10 000 people signed the petition so far. Join us!
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EDRi-gram, 12 November 2020
We have watched as governments have abused their power to put limits on people’s freedoms, and as companies have exploited the situation to gather ever more biometric data about us. The Reclaim Your Face coalition has risen up against the widespread abuse of our biometric data before and during the pandemic.
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EDRi-gram, 28 October 2020
Data brokers are key actors in the hidden data ecosystem. The data they collect and later sell can be used for a range of different purposes, from commercial advertising to political campaigning, and in some worrying instances, law enforcement.
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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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EDRi-gram, 30 September 2020
"Biometric mass surveillance is tremendously invasive and inhumane. It allows an invisible, permanent and massive control of the public space. It makes everybody a suspect. It turns our face into a tracking device, rather than a signifier of personality, eventually reducing it to a technical object."
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EDRi-gram, 16 September 2020
"Structural racism appears in policy areas from health, employment to climate. It is increasingly clear that digital and technology policy is also not race-neutral, and needs to be addressed through a racial justice lens."
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EDRi-gram 18.13, 8 July 2020
"We are learning that a true universal approach recognises marginalisation in order to protect it. In order to protect digital rights for all we must understand these differences, highlight them, and then fight for collective solutions"
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EDRi-gram 18.12, 24 June 2020
"Digital sovereignty means building infrastructures, helping create services, funding research and supporting critical civil society"
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EDRi-gram 18.11, 10 June 2020
"The EU must move beyond technical fixes for the complex problems posed by AI. Instead, the upcoming AI regulation must determine the legal limits, impermissible uses or "red-lines" for AI applications. This is a necessary step for a people-centered, fundamental rights-based AI"
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EDRi-gram 18.10, 27 May 2020
"A collective vision of privacy means contesting ramped-up police monitoring and the use of marginalised groups as guinea pigs for new digital technologies, as well as ensuring new technologies have adequate privacy protections."
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EDRi-gram 18.9, 13 May 2020
"The use of biometric surveillance systems creates a dynamic where the powerful watch and the powerless are watched"
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EDRi-gram 18.8, 29 April 2020
"The upcoming Digital Services Act (DSA) must address the issue of political microtargeting. It is a once-in-a-decade chance to correct the power imbalance between platforms and user."
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EDRi-gram 18.7, 15 April 2020
"What can the experiences of the UK, Poland and Hungary teach states about how to stop the spread of coronavirus - without leaving the door ajar for future fundamental rights violations to creep in?"
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EDRi-gram 18.6, 1 April 2020
"EDRi supports necessary, proportionate measures, fully in line with national and international human rights and data protection and privacy legislation, taken in order to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic"
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EDRi-gram 18.5, 11 March 2020
"As law enforcement across Europe increasingly conduct profiling practices, it is crucial that substantive safeguards are put in place to mitigate the many dangers for the individual rights and freedoms they entail"
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EDRi-gram 18.4, 26 February 2020
"The requirement of a notification seems to be out of the question for those advocating for "efficiency" of cross-border criminal investigations, even if that means abandoning the most basic procedural safeguards"
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EDRi-gram 18.3, 12 February 2020
"We have to ask ourselves what kind of a world do we want to create, and who actually benefits from the development and deployment of technologies used to manage migration"
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EDRi-gram 18.2, 29 January 2020
"We've all heard the saying: 'If the product is free, then you're the product'"
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EDRi-gram 18.1, 15 January 2020
We analysed three increasingly common uses of facial recognition: tagging pictures on Facebook, automated border control gates, and police surveillance"
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