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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

On February 24, Homo Digitalis and “EKPIZO” Consumers’ Union sent a joint letter to the Greek Prime Minister and all leaders of the parliamentary political parties, requesting the immediate reconsideration of Law 4624/2019 on data protection.

The necessity for such a reconsideration stems from the Opinion 1/2020, issued by the Greek Data Protection Authority, which found Law 4264/2019 to be in contravention with the GDPR and Directive 2016/680 on various occasions.

The letter was also communicated to the President of the Greek Data Protection Authority, Mr. Konstantinos Menoudakos.

You may read the letter in Greek here.

On 19 February 2020 the 7th Information Security Conference took place in Evgenidis Foundation in Athens.

The conference was organized by Boussias Communications and with the support of Homo Digitalis.

Mr. Konstantinos Kakavoulis represented our organization, speaking about the importance of information security in our culture. Mr. Kakavoulis underlined that “cybersecure at home means cybersecure at work.”

Three more Homo Digitalis members attended the conference.

On 14 February Homo Digitalis was invited to speak to the teachers of primary and secondary education in Chania, Crete.

In the morning session, Elpida Vamvaka and Konstantinos Kakavoulis spoke to the teachers regarding the digital footprint and its importance for our digital personality.

They explained in a practical way how the teachers can protect themselves, but also how they can educate their students to gain control of their personal data.

In the afternoon session, they spoke to parents and children regarding the right to access and the right to erasure.

Two more Homo digitalis members participated in the seminar, with Anthi Strataki and Dimitris Grammenos, presenting the interactive workshop “GDPR and the 40 thieves”, while Giorgos Perrakis, lawyer and Homo Digitalis member, attended the seminar.

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.