Last night, 24 March, the European Union made a great step forward to better protecting our rights online as it approved the political trilogue compromise for the Digital Markets Act (DMA).This decision promises to challenge the strongly centralised environment of Big Tech platfo … | Continue reading
“Any restrictions on children’s right to freedom of expression in the digital environment, such as filters, including safety measures, should be lawful, necessary and proportionate”and any digital surveillance of children “should respect the child’s right to privacy and should no … | Continue reading
On 6 July, the European Parliament adopted in a final vote the derogation to the main piece of EU legislation protecting privacy, the ePrivacy Directive, to allow Big Tech to scan your emails, messages and other online communications. | Continue reading
The risks and harms that are associated with hyper-targeted online ads have been widely documented. Yet, the same amount of attention has not been shown to the many ways in which harms and risks of online advertising are unequally distributed, and how targeted online advertising … | Continue reading
Companies and governments are already using AI systems to make decisions that lead to discrimination. When police or government officials rely on them to determine who they should watch, interrogate, or arrest — or even “predict” who will violate the law in the future — there are … | Continue reading
On 21 April 2021, the European Commission put forward a proposal for a new law on artificial intelligence. With it, the Commission acknowledged some of the numerous threats biometric mass surveillance poses for our freedoms and dignity. However, despite its seemingly good intenti … | Continue reading
On 25 March, 61 human rights and journalist organisations sent a joint letter to Members of the European Parliament, urging them to vote against the proposed Regulation on addressing the dissemination of terrorist content online. | Continue reading
Most online advertising today relies on huge amounts of personal data extracted from people without their knowledge. EDRi’s new guide book “Targeted Online” sheds light on this opaque data industry and explores how EU law should regulate it. This is the first blog post in a new s … | Continue reading
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 … | Continue reading
After a massive leak of the voter’s list showing the voting preferences, addresses, phones and dates of birth of a majority of the Maltese population, noyb.eu will assist the Daphne Foundation and Repubblika in their class action and file complaints about the data breach in vario … | Continue reading
On 15 March, Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, and several other similar legal provisions, were due to expire and begin the process of reform and review to incorporate new legal protections of privacy. However, as a result of a coordinated effort by both chambers of the US Cong … | Continue reading
Online platforms rank and moderate content without letting us know how and why they do it. There is a pressing need for transparency of the practices and policies of these online platforms. Our lives are closely intertwined with technology. One obvious example is how we browse, r … | Continue reading
One day, while waiting for the metro, Leo Colombo Viña was approached by a police officer who had received an alert that he was wanted for armed robbery. The alert had been triggered by the metro station’s facial recognition surveillance system. His first assumption was “okay, I’ … | Continue reading
SHARE Foundation has filed complaints against Facebook and Google for their non-compliance with the obligation to appoint representatives in Serbia for data protection issues. | Continue reading
Bits of Freedom has been investigating the problems associated with the use of facial recognition by the police in the public space. As part of this investigation they wanted to put this technology to the test themselves. How does facial recognition technology really work? | Continue reading
We’ve finally published our new guide for ethical website development and maintenance, Ethical Web Dev! It’s aimed at web developers and maintainers who have a strong understanding of technical concepts, to assist them in bringing the web back to its roots – a decentralised tool … | Continue reading
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn decide for you what you should see next, track each action you make to profile you and decide whether your post hurts their commercial interests, and therefore should be removed, or not. | Continue reading
The digitalisation of marketing has introduced novel industry practices and business models. Some of these new systems have developed into crucial threats to people’s freedoms. A particularly alarming one is Real Time Bidding (RTB). When you visit a website, you often encounter c … | Continue reading
Many feared (and some hoped) that the European Parliament’s JURI Committee vote on the 20th of June would be the end of our campaign, as well as the end of the open internet. Not so fast, the censorship machine is not a done deal! Here are the strategic action points we can take … | Continue reading
On 25 May, the European Council agreed to a negotiating position on the draft copyright directive. This will allow the presidency of the Council to start negotiations with the European Parliament on mass monitoring and filtering of internet uploads and a chaotic new “ancillary c … | Continue reading