Homo Digitalis starts its collaboration with Sarantaporo.gr
Homo Digitalis and Sarantaporo.gr, the most active wireless communicty network of citizens in Greece, proudly announce their collaboration.
Their common activity shall be directed to the promotion and protection of digital rights, particularly the right to access to internet, in remote areas.
Stefanos Vitoratos and Vassilis Chryssos signing the Memorandum of Understanding for Homo Digitalis and Sarantaporo.gr
According to a recent survey, only 78,5% of Greeks have access to the internet, thus meaning that 2,5 million citizens live digitally excluded.
This partially comes as a result of the fact that the level of internet service is low, in remote areas with small population; these areas remain excluded because there is no interest by the internet service providers to invest there.
Sarantaporo.gr is a wireless community network working towards the elimination of this digital exclusion. It operates in 11 villages in the area of the Elassona Municipality, providing internet access to 3,500 people. Its operation is based on the participation of the internet users in the creation and maintenance of the network.
This project recently won the first prize in the European Broadband Awards 2019 by the European Commission.
The two prominent civil society organizations decided to work together to propose measures to the Greek State, which shall enhance the level of internet access and provide for actual enjoyment of digital rights for the people residing in the Greek territory.
The members of the two organizations during the signature of the MoU
Homo Digitalis on ΣΚΑΙ Crete 92,1
Elpida Vamvaka, president of Homo Digitalis, spoke to ΣΚΑΙ Crete 92,1 radio station for Personal Data Protection matters in the context of the events that took place last week on Heraklion. You can listen on the interview by clicking on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mtDAvFPUy4&feature=youtu.be
During the interview, the next event to take place in Crete was announced which will be hosted by the Directorates of Primary and Secondary Education of Chania in collaboration with the Foundation For Research And Technology (FORTH) and Homo Digitalis on Friday 14 February 2020, titled “Personal Data Protection and student security in the digital world”.
Further details will be announced the following days
Homo Digitalis on ΚΡΗΤΗ TV
Homo Digitalis President, Elpida Vamvaka and Homo Digitalis member and DPO of FORTH, Anthi Strataki, talked to ΚΡΗΤΗ Today show on ΚΡΗΤΗ TV for Personal Data Protection matters, on the occasion of the recent events that took place last week on Heraklion. You can view the interview by clicking on the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IQhH_rQrJY
During the interview, the next event to take place in Crete was announced which will be hosted by the Directorates of Primary and Secondary Education of Chania in collaboration with the Foundation For Research And Technology (FORTH) and Homo Digitalis on Friday 14 February 2020, titled “Personal Data Protection and student security in the digital world”.
Further details will be announced the following days.
Homo Digitalis distributed cookies "for free" in Heraklio, Crete
In the context of the Data Protection Day, the Homo Digitalis team distributed cookies to passers-by in the central square of Heraklion, Crete, on 30 January 2020.
The cookies were distributed “for free” in exchange for the personal data of the passers-by. Only 2% of them did not accept to exchange their personal data with cookies!
This action intended to explain in a simple way the operation of cookies online.
The event took place under the auspices of the District of Crete, to which we are grateful.
Local media covered the event and many interviews were given by our members.
You can read the story in Greek at cretalive.gr and watch videos for Kriti TV and Creta Channel.
Stefanos Vitoratos spoke to zougla.gr for the Data Protection Day
The vice-president of Homo Digitalis, Stefanos Vitoratos, was invited by the National Kapodistrian University of Athens on 27 January to give a lecture on the course “E-governance and Digital Public Participation” of the M.Sc. Program “Digital Communications Media and Interaction Environments”.
Mr. Vitoratos informed the students on digital rights in an interactive presentation.
Then, he gave an interview to the journalist Sotiris Skouloudis for zougla.gr.
“We must have a culture of protecting our digital rights as citizens and internet users. This is an ongoing procedure, which needs our permanent attention and focus”, he noted.
The interview is available in Greek here.
Homo Digitalis participates in a stakeholders' meeting by BEREC
Today, Tuesday, 4 February 2020, Homo Digitalis participated in a stakeholders’ meeting in Brussels organized by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC). The meeting concerned the draft BEREC guidelines on common approaches to the identification of the network termination point in different network topologies.
Homo Digitalis was invited to contribute to the meeting by BEREC, since it had filed proposals during the public consultation in November 2019.
A representative of the Greek National Telecommunication and Posts Committee (EETT) took also part in the meeting through teleconference.
You may view our proposals here.
Homo Digitalis presentation in CPDP 2020 is now available
On 24 January 2020 Homo Digitalis had the honour to participate in the Computers, Privacy, Data Protection Conference (CPDP) 2020, the most prominent conference in Europe on legal and ethical issues regarding new technologies.
We contributed to a panel, held by European Digital Rights (EDRi), on “AI and Migration Control: New Tools In The Service Of Fortress Borders”.
The video of our presentation is now available here.
You can also watch the video with our slides and sources here.
Publication & Presentation of the first Evaluation of the CEPS Working Group
On January 22, the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) Working Group on Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity published its Evaluation of the HLEG Trustworthy AI Assessment List (Pilot Version).
Homo Digitalis contributed significantly on this Evaluation, which aspires to suggest to the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI HLEG) of the European Commission additions to the said list, with a view to enhancing human rights protection.
The evaluation was presented to Ms. Lucilla Sioli, Director for AI and Digital Industry at European Commission, receiving extremely positive feedback.
Our organization took part in the round table discussion that followed the presentation.
We sincerely thank the co-authors of the evaluation Mr. Lorenzo Pupillo, Mr. Stefano Fantin and Mr. Afonso Ferreira, for this great collaboration!
Homo Digitalis had the great honor to contribute to this Evaluation with the participation of Eleftherios Chelioudakis, and is acknowledged in the Preamble of the study.
You may download the report here.
Homo Digitalis presentation in the M.Sc. Program "Digital Communications Media and Interaction Environments"
On January, 27 Stefanos Vitoratos, Homo Digitalis vice-president was invited to the course “E-governance and Digital Public Participation” of the M.Sc. program of the Faculty of Communications and Media of the National Kapodistrian University of Athens.
Mr. Vitoratos spoke about human rights in the contemporary digital age and the interaction between the various human rights.
His presentation was very interactive and the participation of students was huge.
We warmly thank the lecturers Mr. Dimitris Gkouskos and Ms. Eleni-Reveka Staiou for their invitation.