Open letter to the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council on DSA
On Thursday, 5/6/2020 the Center for Democracy and Technology sent an open letter to the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council of the Council of the EU, the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, M.Vestager and the Commissioner for Internal Market, T.Breton as regards the upcoming legislative proposal on Digital Services (Digital Services Act – DSA).
Homo Digitalis co-signs the letter by the Center for Democracy and Technology along with other known civil society organisations, such as: Access Now, Article 19, Liberties, Civil Right Defenders, Digitale Gesellschaft, epicenter.works, HRMI, Justitia, The Peace Institute and Rights International Spain.
You may read the full text of the open letter in English here.
Contribution by Homo Digitalis to the video conference held by the Hellenic Competition Commission
On Wednesday June 3rd 2020 Homo Digitalis will have the great honour and pleasure of making a contribution on the topic “Algorithms and big data” to the video conference on e-commerce held by the Hellenic Competition Commission.
It is an extraordinary honour for our Organisation that the Competition Commission, having read the relevant memorandum and the proposals (link in Greek) we had submitted mid-May, invited us to participate by making a contribution to its video conference. We warmly thank the Commission for the invitation.
The video conference will present an excellent opportunity for us to elaborate on our positions and proposals as well as exchange ideas and opinions with the President of the Competition Commission, the Rapporteurs and the Investigation team of the Commission and the other contributors and participants of the video conference.
Once again, the praise goes to the editorial team of the relevant memorandum of Homo Digitalis which is comprised of our members: Vamvaka Elpida, Volikou Adamantia, Volikou Eirini, Gakis Dionysis, Konstantinou Stergios and Chelioudakis Lefteris.
Our President and member of the editorial team for the memorandum, Elpida Vamvaka, will represent us at the video conference.
Participation in the open consultation of the European Data Strategy
Homo Digitalis submitted today its positions and proposals to the European Commission on the European Data Strategy by participating in the relevant open consultation.
You can find our answers to the relevant questionnaire of the European Commission here, as well as the additional memorandum we submitted with our proposals here.
100+ organizations in a joint statement for COVID-19
On April 2, more than 100 civil society organizations, including Homo Digitalis, signed a joint statement for privacy issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The organizations include among others Access Now, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Privacy International, European Digital Rights (EDRi) and Homo Digitalis.
The statement is available here.
Homo Digitalis signs the ΕΑΙD Declaration
On 29 March, Homo Digitalis signed the European Academy for Freedom of Information and Data Protection (ΕΑΙD) Declaration on personal data protection and freedom of information during the COVD-19 pandemic.
The letter calls all of us to stay vigilant so that the encounter of COVID-19 measures does not violate human rights. The civil rights and liberties are inherent to modern democracies and should be protected even under the serious pandemic we are facing.
Many prominent scientists and human rights advocates sign the declaration.
The declaration is available here.
Joint Letter to the Council of the EU on TERREG
On March 27, European Digital Rights (EDRi) and many more civil society organizations, including Homo Digitalis, sent a joint letter to the Council of the EU regarding the suggested EU Terrorist Content Regulation (TERREG).
In the letter, we note our grave concerns regarding the suggested text, as well as privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of information concerns.
You may read the letter in the EDRi website or here.
Request for the Greek DPA's opinion on the Greek Police Agreement on Smart Policing
Today, 19.03.2020, Homo Digitalis filed a request to the President of the Greek DPA for the issue of an opinion regarding the agreement for the provision of smart policing systems between the Greek Police and INTRACOM TELECOM
This agreement provides for the processing of citizens’ biometric data (fingerprints and photos) through portable devices, among others.
It is essential that the Greek DPA provides its opinion on the issue, taking into account the important privacy challenges for all data subjects in Greece.
The full text of our request in Greek is available here.
Letter to Greek ministers for the TERREG text
Today, 09.03.2020, Homo Digitalis sent a letter to the Minister of Civil Protection, the Minister of Justice and the Permanent Representation of Greece in the EU concerning important safeguards that should be taken into account in the TERREG text.
With this letter we underline various provisions in the suggested text, which might be extremely harmful for privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of information.
The said letter is aligned to the positions expressed by European Digital Rights (EDRi) as well as the pertinent Opinion of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).
Homo Digitalis at 4th Data Protection & Privacy Law Forum
The 4th Law Forum on Data Protection & Privacy took place in Athens on February 26, 2020.
The conference was organized by Palladian Conferences with the support of Homo Digitalis.
Stefanos Vitoratos, vice-president of our organization, represented Homo Digitalis, speaking about the importance of raising awareness of the public in order for data controllers to achieve compliance.
Maria-Alexandra Papoutsi, Vasilis Vasilopoulos and Dimitris Patsos, also members of our organization, participated at the conference, under their professional capacities.
