Petra Schmidt
In a press conference held today, the European Commission has initiated the end of privacy and confidentiality of communications on the internet in Europe. The proposed new legislation would require hosting and messenger providers to search the content of their users for potentially illegal content using error-prone upload filters.
The European Union is about to redefine the ecodesign criteria for products in several legislative proposals, including the Sustainable Product Initiative, the Circular Electronics Initiative, and the Right to Repair. These proposals aim at extending the usage time of hardware and facilitating circular use of electronic devices. The current regulations stem from 2009 and do not include any criteria regarding the design and licensing of software as an important factor for the sustainability of electronic products.
As internet activists who work to promote a free and open internet, we are watching the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the reactions around the world very closely. A free and open internet essentially allows a global exchange between all people, regardless of national borders, ideologies, social position or education. This direct cultural exchange fosters peace, but is undermined by a trend towards isolation that can be observed in China for instance. In Russia, freedom of the press and freedom of opinion have also deteriorated for many years.
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In June 2021 the European Commission launched a reform of the 2014 eIDAS Regulation to overhaul Europe’s framework for electronic identity (eID) systems. This ambitious reform tries to create a counterbalance to the widespread login systems of Google, Facebook and Apple, as well as to provide widely-adopted eID systems for eGovernment and eCommerce applications to the population.
Today, 30 November 2021, 115 civil society organisations, including epicenter.works and European Digital Rights (EDRi) launched a collective statement to call for an Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) which foregrounds fundamental rights.
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The European net neutrality rules are being reformed to fix one of the biggest loopholes in the EU‘s framework: Zero-Rating. epicenter.works together with EDRi and others has been vocal about the dangers of Zero-Rating, a practice by which telecoms companies discriminate between online services by making some data traffic more expensive than other such traffic.
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Contribution by: Jesper Lund, Chairman EDRi member, IT-Political Association of Denmark
Europe’s highest court has put an end to a long-standing legal battle around the EU’s Net Neutrality Regulation. In a landmark judgement published last week, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) confirmed what EDRi and its members have argued for years: that zero rating is illegal under EU law because it violates the neutrality obligations of internet access providers.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung | Der Spiegel
At the start of the trial against security adviser Julian Hessenthaler, who played a key role in the making of the so-called Ibiza video1, 18 Austrian and international human rights organisations express their concern that his excessive criminal prosecution could – intentionally – have a deterring effect on future sources or whistleblowers and the exercise of freedom of opinion, freedom of the press and freedom of information.
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As we do every summer, we are publishing our annual transparency report. The pandemic year of 2020 was one of the most turbulent, busiest, but also one of the most exciting years in the association’s history.
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Research is important. Using research as a cover to obtain unchecked access to sensitive official data is not.