Polish Senate calls Pegasus illegal and demands scrutiny over secret services

EDRi member, Panoptykon Foundation

The Senate of Poland concluded its investigation on the use of Pegasus by Polish secret services to spy on opposition politicians and unapologetic public persons.

They declared that Pegasus should be considered illegal in Poland and the secret services should be put under strict and independent scrutiny. Doubts also arose around the fairness of Poland’s 2019 elections. Read more.

Meta pledges to ask EU users for consent before showing behavioural ads

Mickey Manakas, PR Manager, EDRi member, noyb

In a surprise announcement, Meta made the long overdue promise to finally ask its users for their consent before showing ads – at least if they live in the European Union, EEA or Switzerland.

According to Meta, the change is due to a new interpretation of the GDPR by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC). What about the fact that the company has been in legal trouble over its advertising business in the past five years? Read more.

Czech police use facial recognition system, IuRe finds out details

EDRi member, Iuridicum Remedium

EDRi member Iuridicum Remedium (IuRe) have details on the Czech police’s illegal use of a facial recognition system. The country’s data protection authorities were not consulted in advance on the system, which is being used for biometric identification.

IuRe's findings have led to increased scrutiny of the use of the system and an examination by the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection. Read more.

EU lawmakers must regulate the harmful use of tech by law enforcement in the AI Act

EDRi & EDRi member, Access Now

As the European Union inches closer to finalising the AI Act, civil society organisations are concerned about the unchecked, discriminatory and mass surveillance due to the use of AI in policing and migration control.

Thus, 115 civil society organisations are asking EU policymakers to regulate the use of AI systems by law enforcement, migration control and national security authorities throughout Europe. Read more.

Open letter: EU countries should say no to the CSAR mass surveillance proposal

EDRi

EDRi and 81 organisations have sent an open letter to European governments to once again urge them to say no to the Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Regulation until it fully protects online rights, freedoms, and security.

This public call builds on the widely supported academic and tech position of nearly 500 scientists and researchers, who have warned that the proposal is technically dangerous and poses a severe threat to encryption. Read more.

Potential loopholes in the AI Act could allow use of intrusive tech on ‘national security’ grounds

EDRi affiliate, European Center for Not-for-Profit Law & Stop Killer Robots

Both the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe (COE) negotiations are considering excluding AI systems designed, developed and used for military purposes, matters of national defence and national security from the scope of their final regulatory frameworks.

If this indeed happens, we will have a huge regulatory gap regarding such systems. Read more.

Read

How the European Parliament will vote for and against biometric mass surveillance?

Joe McNamee

The purpose of this article is to explain the decision-making process for the AI Act and how it risks leading to the rollout of AI-powered biometric mass surveillance. We can, together, stop biometric mass surveillance, for the good of people in the EU and for populations around the globe. Read more.

Do

Demand a future without manipulation

The Greens/EFA

In a world with the EU Digital Services Act, surveillance-based advertising will be banned to help the industry to innovate and start using respectful ways of advertising. Contextual advertising, which does not rely on personal data, will become the norm. Demand a future without manipulation. Act now!

Watch

Telegram isn’t as private as you think

NBTV, with Naomi Brockwell

Telegram advertises itself as a private messaging app, and has attracted over 800 million users. But, if you're looking for private communication, this is not the app to recommend. This video explains how encryption actually works on Telegram: how it's not possible to end-to-end encrypt group chats, and how direct messages are not private by default. Watch the video.

Listen

The world of mesh networking with Elektra Wagenrad

EDRi member, fsfe

With this episode the Software Freedom Podcast opens the door to the fascinating and sometimes complex world of mesh networking. If you are new to this world, this episode is an easy entrance to it. Elektra not only explains the theory behind the protocols but also dives deeper into the philosophical idea of it. Listen to the podcast.

EDRi | Policy Advisor (2 year position) | Brussels, Belgium

ICCL | Head of Research and Policy | not mentioned

Access Now | Senior Finance Officer & Grants and Contracts Manager | Brussels, Belgium & remote

Civitates | Senior Programme Manager | Brussels, Belgium & remote

Freedom of the Press Foundation | Senior Security Engineer | Remote

Human Rights Watch | Director, Technology and Human rights | Multiple Locations Considered

Liberties | Communication and Campaign assistant (intern) | Berlin, Germany

Mozilla Foundation | Executive Director | Various

noyb | Full stack developer & Data protection lawyer | Vienna, Austria

Privacy International | Advocacy officer | London, UK

SOMO | Tech Mergers Project Coordinator | Amsterdam, the Netherlands or Brussels, Belgium

Statewatch | Communications worker | London, UK

Systemic Justice | Systemic Justice roster & Student Researchers | Various

The Center for Democracy & Technology | Senior Policy Analyst elections & democracy & Deputy Director, Free Expression Project | Washington, D.C.

Wikimedia Foundation｜Creative Associate - Online Fundraising,Privacy Specialist & Senior Site Reliability Engineer｜ Various

04.09 - 23.11.2023｜Virtual School on Internet Governance｜by VirtualSig 

03.10.2023｜Imposter syndrome in activism: how do we cope?｜by TeamCOMMUNITY

04.10 - 05.10.2023｜The future of speech online 2023: generative AI｜by CDT

05.10.2023｜The Good Lobby tracker: report launch｜by The Good Lobby

11.10 – 12.10.2023｜EU DisinfoLab 2023 annual conference｜by EU DisinfoLab

24.10 - 26.10.2023｜Digital Sovereignty Conference｜by Disco Slovenia 

02.11.2023｜Tech Prom｜ by Center for Democracy and Technology

13.11 – 14.11.2023｜Tackling disinformation: Strengthening democracy through information integrity｜by OECD

20.11 – 21.11.2023｜Disinformation Congress｜by Disinformation Congress

25.02 – 27.02.2024 ｜EDMO Scientific Conference: call for papers｜by EDMO