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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Homo Digitalis team in Heraklio, Crete created a video in the context of January 28, the “European Data Protection Day”

The following Homo Digitalis members take part in the video:

Elpida Vamvaka, Manos Papadakis, Vyron Kavalinis, Konstantinos Liandrogiannakis, Kyriaki Syntichaki, Panagiotis Arapoglou, Katerina Kourzi, Eleftheria Vamvaka, Maria Vouisdaki, Giorgos Drakonakis, Konstantinos Spinthakis, Giorgos Maselis, Alexandra Karapidaki, Ioanna Spanaki.

We thank Comeet Creative Space and Groove Studio for the support.

The video is available here.

On January, 24 Homo Digitalis will have the great honour to participate in Computers, Privacy, Data Protection (CPDP) 2020, the most prominent conference in Europe on ethical and legal issues regarding new technologies.

This year, the conference will focus on the use of Artificial Intelligence and its consequences on personal data protection.

Our organization will contribute to a panel held by European Digital Rights (EDRi) on “AI and Migration Control: New Tools In The Service Of Fortress Borders”

Head of the panel will be Ms. Anna Fielder, EDRi President.\

The members of the panel will be:

– Petra Molnar, coordinator of the Human Rights program in the Faculty of Law of Toronto and EDRi – Mozilla Open Web Fellow,

– Christian D’Cunha, Director of the personal office of  the European Data Protection Supervisor -EDPS,

– Patrick Breyer, Member of the European Parliament with European Pirates.

Homo Digitalis will be represented by Mr. Eleftherios Chelioudakis, one of the co-founders of our organization and Secretary of the Board.

The panel will take place at 14.15. If you are in CPDP, come to meet us!

The full schedule of the conference is available here.

It is worth noting that more Homo Digitalis members have taken part in CPDP in the past, representing the organizations they work for.

On Tuesday 14 January, European Digital Rights (EDRi) and 41 more organizations, including Homo Digitalis, sent an open letter to the European Commission requesting transparency during the implementation the EU Copyright Directive.

With this letter, we ask the Commission to publish any documents and guidelines it will draft on the topic. We also ask for the proposals submitted by the co-signing organizations to be taken into account during the drafting of such guidelines.

You may read the full letter here.

On 8 January 2020, Privacy International and more than 50 other organizations, including Homo Digitalis, sent an open letter to the Alphabet Inc. CEO, Mr. Sundar Pichai.

With this letter, the co-signing organizations, ask Google to take immediate measures to prohibit the use of pre-installed applications on Android smartphones, which constitute a threat to privacy of the users.

These applications are currently permitted to operate outside the Android security protocols. It is notable that 91% of the said apps are not available in Google Play.

These pre-installed apps are usually found in cheap Android smartphones and permit the use of the camera or the microphone, or even access to the device location.

However, privacy and personal data protection are not luxuries, but human rights!

You may read the full letter here and also participate in this campaign here.