Our organization is proud to have become observer member to the CAHAI – Ad hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence of the Council of Europe.

Under the authority of the Committee of Ministers, the CAHAI is instructed to examine the feasibility and potential elements on the basis of broad multi-stakeholder consultations, of a legal framework for the development, design and application of artificial intelligence, based on the Council of Europe’s standards on human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

The Committee consists of representatives of the 47 Council of Europe members and representatives of states, such as Canada, japan, Mexico, USA, Israel, the Holy See. Furthermore, representatives of other CoE bodies participate in the Committee, as well as representatives of international organizations (including the EU, UNESCO, OECD, OSCE). Finally, representatives of private companies, academia and civil society organizations contribute to the success of the Committee.

Homo Digitalis was accepted as observer-member to the Committee by the end of June.

We are very pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the Committee plenary on 6-8 July, which will take place as a teleconference. Eleftherios Chelioudakis, co-founder of our organization, will represent Homo Digitalis in the meeting.

We would like to warmly thank the members of the Committee for accepting our application unanimously.

On June 26, Mr. Olivier Micol, Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers Director, informed us on the course of our complaint regarding non-compliance of the Greek Data Protection Law (Law 4624/2019) with the EU personal data framework.

The European Commission has carefully reviewed our complaint the Commission services are currently in contact with the Greek authorities to discuss how the LED and the GDPR are implemented in Greece.

If the Commission services will come to the conclusion, after the respective discussion, that the way how the LED and/or the GDPR have been implemented in Greece violates EU data protection law, the Commission has the possibility to launch an infringement procedure against Greece.

You may read the letter by Mr. Micol here.

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. However, no action has been taken on the issue yet.

The latest EDRi-gram is out!

An article by Homo Digitalis is hosted in the section “COVIDTech”.

Eleftherios Chelioudakis and Antigoni Logotheti wrote an article for the use of drones by the Greek Police during the Easter period for the lockdown surveillance. The article focuses on the study on “Digital Rights in Greece during the COVID-19 period” published by Homo Digitalis.

The article is available here.

On Friday June 19th our members, Alexandra Giannopoulou, Aimilia Givropoulou and Foteini Stergiou represented Homo Digitalis at a meeting with members of the scientific staff of the Hellenic Copyright Organization (HCO) headed by the HCO Director, Evangelia Vagena.

In the course of the meeting we discussed with the HCO a range of issues concerning the transposition into the national jurisdiction of Directive (EU) 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (CDSM Directive) and the amendment of Directives 96/9/EC and 2001/29/EC as well as the memorandum (link in Greek) we had submitted in the context of its relevant public consultation.

We would like to warmly thank the scientific team of the HCO for their time, for the very fruitful and productive discussion and for the excellent atmosphere in which it took place!

Today, 14 June 2020, Homo Digitalis submitted its answers and memorandum in the context of the European Commission’s public consultation on the White Paper on Artificial Intelligence.

You can see our suggestions and our answers here.

Homo Digitalis has also actively participated  in the corresponding submission of the European Digital Rights (EDRi) network.

On 17 June, at 18.00 CET the EADPP (European Association of Data Protection Professionals) Greece branch * holds its first online webinar entitled “Doing business online in social distancing era: privacy and communication issues”.

Mr. Konstantinos Kakavoulis will represent Homo Digitalis as a speaker in the webinar.

Participation is free.

The full schedule of the webinar:

“Doing business online in social distancing era: privacy and communication issues”

DATE: Wednesday, June 17th 2020
TIME: 19:00-20:00 EET / 18.00-19.00 CET

Introduction:
-Olga Tsiptse (Chairman GREECE EADPP Branch),
-Marc Vrijhof (Chairman EADPP)

Moderator:
-Dimos Kostoulas (General Secretary GREECE EADPP Branch)

Speakers:
-Dr. Nikos S. Panagiotou (Associate Professor, Google Research Scholar, Daad Scholar, Chevening Scholar, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
-Konstantinos Kakavoulis (LL.M. Lawyer specializing in International Law and Human Rights, Co-Founder and Board Member of Homo Digitalis)

*About EADPP: The EADPP is the 1st European Association for Data Protection Professionals. Its mission is to represent and support its members who are independent guardians of the GDPR. The primary aim of the organization is to facilitate, organize, structure, and represent European data protection professionals based on European perspectives and the principles of the GDPR. In this light, the first initiatives will be to create an EADPP certificate for data protection professionals and to secure proper representation at all relevant levels of the European Union. The EADPP is a not for profit run for and by its members.

Homo Digitalis has filed 2 strategic complaints with the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (DPA). The complaints are directed against the Greek Police and concern the storage on its part in a central database of the fingerprints of all holders of Greek passports.

With its 2 complaints (reg. number. 3721/01-06-2020 & 3767/02-06-2020, respectively) Homo Digitalis examines the following sub-issues:

1. The legality of the storage of fingerprints by the Greek Police in its central database and the refusal to delete such personal data.

The Police claims that Presidential Decree 178/2014 allows the storage of the fingerprints of all Greek passport holders in its central database. However, Homo Digitalis argues that the provisions of the Presidential Decree:

– do not refer to the storage of fingerprints in a central database,

– are not in line with recent strict legislation in the field of personal data, and

-do not provide the necessary safeguards to offset the risks of the rights of citizens holding Greek passports.

2. The delayed fulfillment by the Police of the right to information of the data subjects regarding the processing of their data and the way of exercising their rights.

The Police should have published on its website from the end of August 2019 all the necessary information set by Law 4624/2019 to inform what are the rights of data subjects and how these rights can be exercised in practice. However, EL.AS. published this information after 6 months. Homo Digitalis claims that this lack of information created confusion among data subjects about the ways in which they could exercise their rights and significantly delayed their submission of access requests to the Hellenic Post.

3. The representation of data subjects before the Hellenic DPA by civil society organizations, such as Homo Digitalis.

European law obliges EU Member States to allow data subjects to be represented by organizations such as Homo Digitalis when they consider that the protection of their personal data is being violated by police authorities. However, Greek law has not included the relevant provision. Homo Digitalis considers that this shortcoming is a significant violation of European law and acts as a deterrent to the protection of personal data of subjects.

The above two complaints are urgent due to the category of data that are being illegally processed by the Greek Police. (biometric data / fingerprints), as well as the large number of subjects involved in the illegal processing (total holders of Greek passports). Homo Digitalis asked the Hellenic DPA to consider the complaints as an immediate priority.

You can find a brief and understandable information in the form of illustrations regarding the specific complaints here.

You can read the detailed legal analysis regarding the specific complaints here.

This action was carried out completely voluntarily by a group of professionals and scientists, members of Homo Digitalis, without any funding from public or private bodies. If you want to support our actions you can do it here.

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.

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.