Today Homo Digitalis became full member of European Digital Rights (EDRi), the most prominent digital rights organizations coalition in the world!

We are the first Greek organization to make it and we are extremely happy to be representing our country.

Homo Digitalis had been an observer-member to EDRi since November 2018. Our actions for digital rights protection in both Greek and European level attracted the interest of champion digital rights organizations.

We warmly thank all our members for their contribution to our work during these years!

D3, the first Portuguese digital rights organization, also became full member on the same day.

On Wednesday 1 April 2020, η European Digital Rights (EDRi) hosted in its “EDRi-gram” magazine an article regarding the actions taken by Homo Digitalis for the provision of smart policing systems by the Greek Police.

You may read the article here.

Our organization had the great honour to participate in the strategy meeting and legal actions event on Artificial Intelligence organized by the Digital Freedom Fund on 19-21 February.

We had the chance to meet old fellows and connect with new companions with a view to making new collaborations. Organizations from many countries took part in the events, while Homo Digitalis was the only representative of Greece.

We warmly thank the Digital Freedom Fund for the invitation. It was a pleasure!

Homo Digitalis and Sarantaporo.gr, the most active wireless communicty network of citizens in Greece, proudly announce their collaboration.

Their common activity shall be directed to the promotion and protection of digital rights, particularly the right to access to internet, in remote areas.

Stefanos Vitoratos and Vassilis Chryssos signing the Memorandum of Understanding for Homo Digitalis and Sarantaporo.gr

According to a recent survey, only 78,5% of Greeks have access to the internet, thus meaning that 2,5 million citizens live digitally excluded.

This partially comes as a result of the fact that the level of internet service is low, in remote areas with small population; these areas remain excluded because there is no interest by the internet service providers to invest there.

Sarantaporo.gr is a wireless community network working towards the elimination of this digital exclusion. It operates in 11 villages in the area of the Elassona Municipality, providing internet access to 3,500 people. Its operation is based on the participation of the internet users in the creation and maintenance of the network.

This project recently won the first prize in the European Broadband Awards 2019 by the European Commission.

The two prominent civil society organizations decided to work together to propose measures to the Greek State, which shall enhance the level of internet access and provide for actual enjoyment of digital rights for the people residing in the Greek territory.

The members of the two organizations during the signature of the MoU

Today, January, 27, the Greek Data Protection Authority issued a very judgmental opinion on the provisions of the Greek Data Protection Law.

The Greek Law 4624/2019 implements provisions of the GDPR, while incorporating Directive 2016/680.

In September 2019, one month after the adoption of the law, Homo Digitalis had filed a petition to the Data Protection Authority together with the Consumers’ Union EKPOIZO, requesting the issue of such an Opinion.

The DPA’s Opinion is very thorough and underlines many important issues arising from the Law 4624/2019. We note that many of the articles, in which the Opinion refers to, were at the centre of our second complaint to the European Commission for non-compliance of the Greek Law with the European legislation. (Complaint no. CHAP(2019)03059).

The DPA notes that it shall not implement any of the provisions of Law 4624/2019, which are contrary to the GDPR.

The full Opinion in Greek is available here.

We are particularly delighted to announce, as on a basis of a proposal from the VUB University of Brussels and the d.pia.lab (Brussels Laboratory on Data Protection and Privacy Impact Assessments), that Homo Digitalis is now member of the Advisory Committee of PERSONA Project.

PERSONA Project is an innovative research project, with a duration period of 30 months, which is financially supported by the European Union in the context of Horizon 2020 programme.

PERSONA’s research team includes 11 operators, who represent 9 European States plus Israel. VUB University acts as the coordinator of the project.

The aim of PERSONA is to create a specific designed, unified method for impact assessment and to assess a range of technological tools used at the borders of states to identify people, considering ethical, legal and regulatory aspects, the right to privacy and data protection, the principle of non-discrimination and other social matters.

The Advisory Committee will monitor the project and ensure that it will be compliant with all the ethical, legal and social requirements.

Homo Digitalis’s  Mr Konstantinos Kakavoulis will represent our organisation in the Committe.

On September 26, 2019, Homo Digitalis’s Konstantinos Kakavoulis and Emmanouil Tzivieris attended the OTE Academy premises in Maroussi of Attica region, invited by the Hellenic (ISC)² Chapter and its President, Mr. Dimitrios Patsos.

They made a presentation to the members of the Hellenic (ISC)² Chapter and discussed Homo Digitalis’s interesting activities, as well as the new Greek law 4624/2019 regarding personal data processing.

After the presentation, discussion was held with the members of Hellenic (ISC)² Chapter.

The (ISC) 2 is the international professional association for information security.

We would like to wholeheartedly thank Mr. Patsos and all the members of the Hellenic (ISC)² Chapter for their invitation.

On Tuesday the 24th of September 2019 at 6 p.m. the​ Institute for Privacy Law, Data Protection, and Technology, established by the European Public Law Organization (EPLO), and the Athens Bar Association are holding an event under the name:

‘Law 4624/2019 on personal data: An initial discussion’ ​

at Athens Bar Associations’ events venue​.

As the keynote speaker,representing Homo Digitalis, Mr. Konstantinos Kakavoulis will commence a discussion regarding personal data, along with distinguished academics and professionals in the personal data sector in our country.

Participating in the event will be free of charge, but due to limited spacing you are kindly requested to make a reservation by sending an email to: ​afiumi@eplo.int​ .

Detailed Events Programme:

Greeting:

Dimitrios Vervessos​, Head of Athens Bar Association.

Speakers:

–Lilian Mitrou:​ ​Professor of Privacy and Information Law University of the Aegean (Dept. of Information and Communication Systems Engineering)

–Ioannis Iglezakis: ​Law Professor at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

–Hara Zerva: ​Lawyer,​ ​D.E.A., GDPR expert, DPO,

–Konstantinos Kakavoulis:​ ​LLM – Lawyer, Homo Digitalis

–Panagiotis Perakis: ​Lawyer, B.O.D. member of Athens Bar Association.

Mr. Konstantinos Menoudakos, President of Hellenic Data Protection Authority (HDPA), Honorary Chairman of the Council of State, will be the events’ coordinator.

Discussion will be held afterwards.

It should be mentioned that the event will be recorded, and the proceedings will be transcribed on a later stage for their publishing. Finally, pictures will be taken.

Our organisation has the great pleasure and honour to be invited to participate in the Working Party of Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) on Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity. CEPS is a well known think tank with a great amount of research activity and impact on issues related to European Union.

The Working Party will hold its first meeting on 10 September 2019 in Brussels, while  4 more meetings will follow in the upcoming months. Its work will be completed with the publication of a study during the first months of 2020.

Members of the Scientific Council of the Working Party are:

-Joanna Bryson, tenured Associate Professor, University of Bath

-Jean-Marc Rickli, Head of Global Risk and Resilience, Geneva Centre or Security Policy (GCSP)

-Marc Ph. Stoecklin, Principal Research Scientist and Manager of Cognitive Cybersecurity Intelligence (CCSI) group, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

-Mariarosaria Taddeo, Assistant Professor, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

We would like to thank the Head of the Working Party Mr. Lorenzo Pupillo and its Rapporteur Mr. Stefano Fnatin for such a gentle invitation. Our organisation will be represented by Mr. Lefteris Helioudakis.

You can learn more about the Working Party and its program of activities here.