Insights from our Celebration event: The Greek Data Protection Authority's Speech
In the first live talk of our 5 Years of Homo Digitalis & 20 Years of European Digital Rights celebration event a few weeks ago at The Benaki Museum, we had the great honor to host a presentation by Dr. George Rousopoulos, Computer Engineer, Specialist Scientist of the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (DPA)!
Mr. Rousopoulos spoke in detail about the importance of the active presence of civil society organizations in democratic states, made reference to the way in which the provisions of the GDPR have led to the significant improvement in the level of protection of our personal data, but also to the challenges that arise during its implementation, when supervisory authorities remain understaffed and with reduced financial resources.
Furthermore, he highlighted some of Homo Digitalis’ significant successes, such as the EUR 20 million fine against CLEARVIEW AI and the revision of the provisions of Law 4624/2019, while underlining the importance of cooperation between supervisory authorities and the CSOs.
“In the new digital landscape, Data Protection Authorities need to be empowered to be able to support and drive the development of innovation that will bring real improvements to people’s lives. Indispensable allies in this work are civil society organisations fighting to strengthen our fundamental rights and freedoms, and to raise awareness among the wider public.”
Insights from our Celebration event: European Data Protection Supervisor's Speech
On 12/12/23 we celebrated our birthday at The Benaki Museum together with European Digital Rights (EDRi) by looking back on the important actions & unique successes we have achieved through exclusive volunteer activities during our first 5 years of operation!
Our contribution to the protection of Human Rights in the modern digital age was discussed in person or online by supervisory authorities, institutions, academics, journalists and civil society organisations!
Among them, we were honoured by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) Dr. Wojciech Wiewiorowski , who accepted our kind invitation to deliver the opening speech of the event. EDPS spoke about the important contribution of Homo Digitalis and EDRi to the protection of personal data and privacy, the pivotal role of civil society organisations in defending democracy and the rule of law, and the need to cooperate with them.
We would like to thank EDPS and his office for the birthday greetings and the heartfelt speech. These words give us the strength to continue our work! You can enjoy a short excerpt of his speech or view the full EDPS positioning here.
Our celebration event for the 5 Years Homo Digitalis & 20 Years European Digital Rights at the Benaki Museum was a great success
Our celebratory event for the 5 Years of Homo Digitalis and the 20 Years of European Digital Rights at the Benaki Museum last week was an absolute success and was, without a doubt, one of the most intense, moving and important moments we have ever experienced!!
We managed to bring together in just a few hours the voluntary work we have all done together over these 5 years to make our digital society a little better!
While we are preparing posts with great material of photos, videos, and presentations coming soon we wanted to say today a HUGE thank you to our event volunteers, Ariana Rapti, Charalampos Kyritsis, Yannis Marinakis, Avgi Saoulidou, Nikoletta Georgakopoulou, Alexandra Giannopoulou, and Sophia Antonopoulou, without whom we would not have made it!
Thank you to all our members, all & all of you, for these five years, for the dedication and seriousness you have shown to the organization!
Participation of Homo Digitalis with an intevention at the Public Consultation of the Competition Commission in the framework of its Final Report on the Sector Inquiry into the Provision of Private Health Care and Related Insurance Services.
On 30 November, the Hellenic Competition Commission (HCC) organised a Public Consultation in the context of its final Report on the Sector Inquiry into the provision of private healthcare and related insurance services.
The President of Homo Digitalis, Elpida Vamvaka, received an honorary invitation from the Competition Commission and its Chairman, Mr. Ioannis Lianos, to attend this Public Consultation and to make a statement. We thank them warmly for their practical interest in the views of Civil Society!
In our statement we welcomed the initiative of Eur. Commission’s initiative to create the European Health Data Space (“EHDS”) and its intention to provide for common rules and interoperable data standards that will facilitate the exchange of health data when it is in the medical interest of patients.
At the same time, we have not failed to highlight the highly problematic new rules that will completely limit medical privacy and the reasonable expectations of privacy that citizens have when they trust their doctor.
You can read more on the website of the Hellenic Competition Commission here.
We invite you to the celebration of 5 Years of Homo Digitalis & 20 Years of EDRi
We invite you to celebrate our birthday together!
Come and experience what Homo Digitalis has achieved in 5 years – and European Digital Rights (EDRi) in 20 years – of action for the protection of Human Rights in the modern digital age.
The event is free of charge and will be followed by networking drinks
Registration required by 1/12 here.
We will celebrate together with key speakers who will honour us :
-Dr. Wojciech Wiewiorowski, EDPS – European Data Protection Supervisor
-Dr. George Rousopoulos, Computer Engineer, Specialist Scientist, DPO
-Alexandra Toth, Programme Manager, European AI & Society Fund & Society Fund,
-Dr. Alexandra Giannopoulou, digiRISE Project Manager of the Digital Freedom Fund and Researcher at the University of Amsterdam
-Eliza Triantafyllou, Journalist, inside story.,
-Diego Naranjo, Head of Policy, European Digital Rights (EDRi)
-Max Schrems, Honorary President noyb.eu
-Ioannis Kouvakas, Senior Legal Counsel & Assistant General Counsel, Privacy International
*The exact programme of the event will be published in the coming days.
We have prepared an easy-to-read infographic on developments at the AI Act trilateral conferences
How are the tripartite conferences progressing in the context of the adoption of the proposed EU AI legislation?
Together with European Digital Rights and other key civil society organisations we have been working closely with over the last few years on this legislative dossier, we have prepared a graphic to highlight where we are with meeting our demands for the protection of Human Rights.
We have achieved significant improvements, but unfortunately there are still many provisions that do not meet our requests. You can read more on the relevant here.
We met with the Ministry of Digital Governance for the AI Act
Today, Lambrini Gyftokosta and Konstantinos Kakavoulis represented Homo Digitalis in a meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Digital Governance.
The topic of discussion: The regulation of AI in the European Union and in Greece.
We would like to thank the representatives of the Ministry for the very fruitful dialogue! We continue to follow the developments and actively participate in their co-shaping.
Homo Digitalis in Brussels for meetings with MEPs on CSAM
Last week Homo Digitalis travelled to Brussels!
There we participated in awareness raising activities with European Digital Rights regarding the proposed regulation on preventing and combating child sexual abuse (#CSAR) and met with Greek and Cypriot MEPs and their groups in the European Parliament to discuss it!
We would like to thank our members Angelina Barla, Charalambos Daftsios, Haris Kiritsis, George Sarris and Nikoleta Georgakopoulou for their excellent representation!!!
You can read more about our visit to Brussels here.
The European Parliament did not adopt our request for a complete ban on the use of spyware in the EMFA provisions
Yesterday, the European Parliament adopted its proposed provisions for the Regulation establishing a common framework for media services in the internal market (EMFA). Now the proposed texts enter the next legislative phase: the trilogue conferences.
Already last week, together with 80 other civil society organisations, journalists and journalists’ unions, we had sent an open letter to MEPs calling on them to adopt a complete ban on the use of spyware, which is a direct attack on our democratic societies and the protection of Human Rights.
Unfortunately, MEPs did not adopt this proposal, but we have enough time to exert pressure and turn the situation around in the trilogue phase.
In Greece we have seen reputable journalists with very important research work being targeted by such spying software, and it is the duty of all of us to join our voices to protect press freedom and independent journalism.