Homo Digitalis speaks at the 1st Seminar of the GNCHR Educational Seminar Series on “Artificial Intelligence: Levels of Protection”
With great success and active public participation, on Monday, September 29, 2025, the opening event of the Educational Seminar Series of the Greek National Commission for Human Rights (GNCHR) took place in the event hall of the Athens Bar Association (DSA), under the theme:
“The Next Day of Rights: Artificial Intelligence – Sustainability – Securitization.”
Homo Digitalis had the great honor of contributing with a presentation in the first seminar of the series, titled “Artificial Intelligence: Levels of Protection.”
Opening remarks were delivered by Marinetta Gounari–Chatzisarantou, Vice President of the Athens Bar Association, while the event was moderated by Giannis Ioannidis, First Vice President of the GNCHR.
Speakers at the seminar included, in order:
Sofia Kastranta, Senior Legal Advisor, Special Legal Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Dr. Efrosini Siougle, Expert Scientist in Informatics, Head of the Advisory and Compliance Mechanisms Department of the Hellenic Data Protection Authority
Eleftherios Chelioudakis, LL.M, M.Sc, Lawyer and Executive Director of Homo Digitalis
Dr. Christos Tsevas, Expert Scientist of the GNCHR
We warmly thank the Greek National Commission for Human Rights for the kind invitation to participate!
You can watch the full event here.
The second seminar will take place at the Athens Bar Association on Monday, October 13, from 17:00 to 19:00, on the topic: “Artificial Intelligence: Rights.”
Find more information here.
We submit an Open Letter to the Prime Minister, calling on the Hellenic Republic to reject the Danish Presidency’s text on the CSA.
Homo Digitalis today submitted an Open Letter to the Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, regarding the proposed Regulation on Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSA Regulation).
In our letter — which we have also shared with the Minister of Justice and the Minister for Citizen Protection — we call on the Hellenic Republic to reject the Danish Presidency’s text in the upcoming vote at the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council on October 14, 2025.
The objective of the Regulation — to curb the distribution of child sexual abuse material — is right and necessary. However, the text proposed by the Danish Presidency would achieve the opposite effect, undermining security and trust in the digital space.
Specifically, 787 leading experts in communication security and encryption — including professors from top academic institutions in Greece — have emphasized that:
The technology for detecting child sexual abuse material is inaccurate and ineffective.
Mandatory scanning undermines end-to-end encryption and opens the door to mass surveillance.
The proposed technical measures can be easily bypassed by malicious users and threaten anonymity and freedom of information.
Real child protection comes through education and support for victims, not through mass monitoring.
On October 14, Greece’s position must be guided by knowledge, technical expertise, and the fundamental principles and values upheld by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Constitution of Greece.
You can read the full text of our open letter here.
You can also read a related article recently published on our website by our member Stergios Konstantinou here.
Learn more about Homo Digitalis’s work on this issue, including past meetings between our members — Haris Kyritsis, Haris Daftsios, Niki Georgakopoulou, Giorgos Sarris, and Angelina Barla — and Greek Members of the European Parliament, in cooperation with European Digital Rights (EDRi), here.
Homo Digitalis Participates in the European Commission’s Meeting on the Protection of Minors Online under the DSA Framework
The Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) of the European Commission visited the offices of the Representation of the European Commission in Athens, holding a series of discussions within the framework of the Digital Services Act (DSA) with various stakeholders and interested parties.
On Tuesday, September 30, a meeting was held on the topic of “Protection of Minors,” aiming to exchange views while taking into account the Commission’s recent Guidelines on Article 28 of the DSA and the need to strengthen the protection of minors online.
Homo Digitalis had the honor to participate in the discussion alongside representatives from independent authorities (EETT, Hellenic Data Protection Authority, National Council for Radio and Television), as well as representatives from the Ministry of Digital Governance, the academic community, and other organizations.
We warmly thank Ilektra Makraki, representative of the European Commission Representation in Greece for the DSA, for the invitation and inclusion. Homo Digitalis was represented at the meeting by its Co-founder and Executive Director, Eleftherios Chelioudakis.
The 10th Open Call for Funding of NGI TALER is here!
A short intro about NGI TALER
The NGI TALER project is funded as a pilot under the NGI initiative within the European Commission’s Horizon Europe research funding program. It is operated by a consortium of 11 partners from 8 European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, Switzerland and The Netherlands) with the mandate to roll out an innovative, best-in-class electronic payment system that benefits everyone: end-consumers, merchants, banks, financial authorities, auditors and anti-corruption researchers! The project builds upon the strong foundations of GNU Taler — the privacy-preserving digital payment system developed by the GNU community and Taler Systems SA with support from the NGI initiative. Read more on NGI TALER’s website, here.
What is this funding call about?
Part of the budget of NGI TALER is reserved for open calls to fund additional free software efforts that are aligned with the topics and approach of NGI TALER. We invite your contributions to help reshape the state of play of digital payment systems, and to help create an open, trustworthy and reliable internet for all! You can contribute exciting new capabilities to GNU Taler itself, build auxiliary tools or work on user experience, but you could also be developing integrations into FOSS applications and open standards, or work on improvements to infrastructure components like merchant back-ends. See more info about the wide range of activities that qualify for financial support and the eligibility criteria here.
How to apply?
The open call is open since 01/10/2025 and the deadline to submit your application is December 1st, 2025, 12:00 CET! You can apply only with proposals between 5.000 and 50.000 euro (60.000 euro is the cumulative absolute hard limit for any applicant for the program). To apply you need to fill in a specific form! From our end we will provide a transparent and efficient selection process. More info in the links below:
We submitted our views to the European Commission’s public consultation on the assessment of the impact of the Digital Markets Act (DMA)
On September 23, Homo Digitalis submitted its views to the European Commission’s Public Consultation as part of the report it is preparing on the assessment of the impact of Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 on Digital Markets (Digital Markets Act – DMA).
The real impact of the DMA depends on the Commission’s determination to enforce it, honoring both the letter and the spirit of the regulation — namely, to create open and competitive digital markets, strengthen competition, and protect users’ rights.
You can read our full submission here.
For more information about the public consultation, click here.
We spoke to NEWS247 about the data breach incident involving the Italian company doValue.
Homo Digitalis gave statements to journalist Eftychia Soufleri and NEWS247.gr regarding the hacking of the Italian company doValue, one of the largest loan management companies in Europe.
16 terabytes of personal data — that’s how much hackers claim to have stolen from the company’s systems, even posting an ad on the dark web to sell them. Our Co-founder and Executive Director, Eleftherios Chelioudakis, represented us by giving statements on the matter.
Find out more about here the sensitive personal data collected by debt collection companies, how much such data is worth on the dark web, and what the obligations of the doValue Group and its subsidiaries, including the Greek subsidiary doValue Greece, are — in case the hack also affected their systems, if the hackers’ claims prove true.
We would like to thank the journalist for including our statements in her article.
We submitted a FOIA before the Greek Ministry of Education for its Memorandum of Cooperation with OpenAI
At Homo Digitalis, we support the innovations brought by new technologies and believe that they can significantly contribute to the improvement of our society, provided that their use complies with the applicable legal framework and aims to promote and protect our rights and freedoms. We envision a better world, where the adoption of technological solutions is the result of critical thinking as well as informed and balanced decision-making.
In this light, we were concerned by the signing, on Friday, September 5, of the “OpenAI for Greece” Memorandum of Cooperation by the Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs and Sports with OpenAI and other stakeholders, for the pilot use of the ChatGPT Edu tool by teachers and students in 20 high schools across the country.
How will teachers and students feel when asked to use tools provided by a company such as OpenAI, which has already been fined €15 million for violations of data protection legislation in Italy and is currently under investigation for possible violations in other countries, such as Austria?
And on what grounds are Artificial Intelligence systems based on proprietary software from US tech giants being prioritized over equivalent tools that could be developed with free and open-source software by research centers and institutions in Greece? Such a choice disregards the European Union’s strategy to strengthen openness, transparency, and technological sovereignty, and, in the case of widespread adoption, will inevitably lead to the dependency of our education system on proprietary software and foreign companies.
In light of the above, today we submitted (protocol number 108260/8/92025) before the Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs and Sports a request for access to documents and information, in which we set out our concerns in detail and request access both to the Memorandum of Cooperation and to other related legal deliverables that should have been drawn up regarding the obligations arising from Law 4624/2019 and Law 4961/2022.
You can see our request here (EL).
Homo Digitalis’ participation in the final General Assembly and policy event of the EITHOS project
This week (2-3/9), Homo Digitalis Executive Director, Eleftherios Chelioudakis, LL.M, M.Sc participated online in the EITHOS EU Project policy event and their final General Assembly.
In his capacity as a pro bono member of the project’s External Advisory Board, Eleftherios contributed to the 3rd session, “Digital Education and Online Safety for Youth”. His presentation focused on the use of deepfakes of child exploitation material by youth, highlighting key provisions of the Greek Penal Code, and stressing how educational initiatives can play a crucial role in raising awareness about obligations and victims’ rights.
Moreover, he participated in the related consortium’s meeting with the External Advisory Board.
We warmly thank the organizers and the rest of the EAB members for their kind invitation and the smooth collaboration throughout the project’s implementation
Homo Digitalis is featured in Adessium's Annual Report for 2024
Adessium supports the European AI & Society Fund (EAISF), a pooled fund dedicated to achieving responsible AI policies and applications. The fund works on legislation for artificial intelligence, monitors its social impact and reports potential risks, such as unjust consequences for citizens and environmental damage due to technology.
In this context, Homo Digitalis alongside European Digital Rights were featured in the 2024 Annual Report, highlighting our key achievements and ongoing work made possible through the support of EAISF. The report includes quotes from Claire Fernandez and Eleftherios Chelioudakis.
We warmly thank EAISF and Adessium for the opportunity to showcase our impactful work in the field of border management and law enforcement, as well as for their continuous support in safeguarding human rights in the digital age!
Read their full annual report and the important work they support here.