Participation of Homo Digitalis in the 52nd Book Festival
Homo Digitalis has the great honour to be present at the 52nd Book Festival taking place at the Pedion tou Areos.
Specifically, on Thursday 19 September at 20:15, our co-founder and President Elpida Vamvaka will participate as a speaker in a round table organized on the main stage of the festival by the Association of Book Publishers (S.E.B.) & the Hellenic Comics Academy on the topic “Is art written with AI?”
The discussion will be moderated by Panagiotis Papageorgiou (Lawyer, Member of the Greek Comics Academy) and Dimitris Doukoglou (illustrator, presenter, stand-up comedian).
Other important speakers of the round table include Vassilis Vlahokyrikakos (Associate Professor of Human-Computer Interaction) , Abraham Kawa (Author, Translator & Theorist of Culture) and George Nathaniel (IT and Management Consultant).
You can find out more about the full Festival programme here.
We participated in European Commission’s roundtable on the DSA enforcement
Last Monday, the 8th of July, Homo Digitalis was invited to participate in the European Commission’s Roundtable on the implementation of the Digital Services Act.
During the roundtable, the European Commission presented an updated of the various steps taken on DSA enforcement so far, highlighting how Civil Society Organizations can act as an important ally in this field. Also, the EC provided an updated on the A.28 Guidelines with regard to the Protection of Minors.
Next, the CSOs that participated in the roundtable had the opportunity to share with the European Commission their current activities, expertise and project capacities in key areas of the implementation of the DSA and exchange views on activities and plans.
We would like to thank the European Commission for this important opportunity to engage with CSOs and their kind invitation to participate in this roundtable. It remains to be seen if national authorities at Greek level, will follow a similar approach and invite Homo Digitalis and other CSOs to a fruitful dialogue with regard to the enforcement of the DSA and the Greek Law 5099/2024.
Our team was represented in the roundtable by Eleftherios Chelioudakis.
We give a lecture at the OSCE's three-day training seminar on the protection of human rights at the borders
The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) organizes next week its training course for human rights defenders working at international borders in Warsaw! The three-day training course aims to enable human rights defenders to understand the human rights implications of border technologies and to improve their skills in collecting and verifying information through various means, including new technologies, for effective human rights monitoring at borders.
On a pro bono basis, Homo Digitalis and HIAS Greece will give a lecture during the training course related to our great success with the KENTAUROS and HYPERION case!
Our lecture titled “Combating Centaurs and Titans – Leveraging Data Protection Law to Counter Intrusive Surveillance in Migration” will focus on how data protection law can be strategically employed to challenge invasive surveillance technologies used in migration. Eleftherios Chelioudakis will represent Homo Digitalis in this lecture.
We would like to thank the organizers for their kind invitation, as well as HIAS Greece for the great collaboration.
You can find more information about the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) here.
We want access to essential services to be guaranteed offline too!
In the beginning of June, Homo Digitalis joined a large number of orgsanisations calling the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament to guarantee access to essential services offline!
Public administration, banks and energy suppliers, as well as employers, health providers and more, have moved online, and counters, mail services and phone lines are disappearing. Yet, more than 40% of Europe’s population still lacks basic digital skills, preventing them from accessing certain essential services. There is an urgent need to guarantee multichannel (incl. off-line) access to all essential services.
Yu can sign the related open letter here.
The coordinator of this action is Lire et Écrire, a Belgian based literacy organization. Since 1983, the organization provides free literacy trainings and research on illiteracy and literacy processes.
Requesting access to personal data stored by Europol: a guide
Europol is the European Union’s law enforcement cooperation agency.
Its main task is to receive, exchange and analyse information and data received from the national police authorities of EU Member States, international organisations such as Interpol, third countries and private companies. This is done in order to support national law enforcement authorities “in preventing and combating organised crime, terrorism and other forms of serious crime”.
But Europol’s powers have been steadily increasing over the last decade, which has led to it playing an increasingly important role in police activities and operations. This includes processing data on civilian activities, travel passengers, as well as third country nationals.
This guide is addressed to activists, lawyers and all interested individuals who wish to have access to personal data processed by Europol concerning themselves or their clients. The guide provides a brief overview of the relevant policy framework, as well as advice and information on the procedure for requesting access to personal data, relevant resources and a model application form.
This guide was produced by Romain Lanneau, Statewatch and Chloé Berthélémy, EDRi with contributions from Chris Jones (Statewatch), Jesper Lund (IT-Pol), Caterina Rodelli (Access Now) and Laure Baudrihaye. Translated into Greek by the Homo Digitalis’ team on a pro bono basis.
You can read the guide in other languages here.
We participated at DFF’s Annual Strategy Meeting (ASM24)
We participated at DFF’s Annual Strategy Meeting (ASM24)
Two weeks ago, Homo Digitalis’ President, Elpida Vamvaka, was in Berlin at Digital Freedom Fund’s Annual Strategy Meeting (ASM24). We are grateful for the chance to engage in enriching dialogue with such inspiring fellow digital rights defenders working to propel human rights forward!
The meeting’s goals were to share meaningful exchanges and updates on digital rights topics, explore new opportunities to organise and collaborate at the intersection of racial, social, economic and environmental justice, to centre care, to safeguard well-being and to build resilience.
The meeting featured peer-driven highlights from DFF’s network, discussions mapping the 2024 landscape and beyond on digital rights issues, knowledge and skill sharing sessions, and a powerful panel on war crimes & digital rights. Stay tuned for the video coming soon!
Topics ranged from queer & trans*, labour, disability, environmental, welfare, prisoners’, children’s and migrants’ rights, to spyware, surveillance, digital policing, platform accountability, movement lawyering, organising for digital justice, and many more.
We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the organizers for inviting us, as well as to all individual participants and represented organisations for making this year’s Annual Strategy Meeting a success.
We are participating in Infolaw 2024 to talk about AI and the AI Act
Lawspot.gr and the European Young Lawyers Association of Greece (ELSA Greece), organize the third InfoLaw conference entitled “Regulating Digital Innovation: Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Platforms” on 28 March 2024 at the “Miltiadis Evert” Amphitheatre of Technopolis, Municipality of Athens. This year’s event is supported by Athens Legal Tech and the Hellenic Association for the Protection of Personal Data and Privacy.
Homo Digitalis is honored to be present, participating in Roundtable 1 | AI. The Roundtable is moderated by Lillian Mitrou, Professor at the University of the Aegean, Lawyer, and President of the Institute for Privacy Law, Data Protection and Technology with their participants:
-Spyros Vlachopoulos, Professor of Constitutional Law at the School of Law, University of Athens, Greece, Lawyer.
-Telemachos Moraitis, Head of Government Relations at Microsoft for Southeast and Central Eastern European countries
-Dimitris Kyriazis, Elected Assistant Professor of European Law, Faculty of Law, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and
-our own Eleftherios Chelioudakis, Co-Founder and Secretary of the Board of Directors of Homo Digitalis
We would like to thank the organizers for the kind invitation, the opportunity to express our views and the inclusion! You can register to follow the very interesting discussions in person, and explore the rich programme here.
We participated at Alan Turing Institute's Workshop on th responsible governance of the use of AI in recruitment and employment’
On the 14th of March, our Director on AI and Human Rights, Lamprini Gyftokosta, participated in an online meeting organised by the Alan Turing Institute “Towards responsible governance of the use of AI in recruitment and employment’. Stakeholders from civil society, government, academia, and industry shared their views on best practices for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in recruitment and employment, including the development of standards in this field.
Findings from this workshop will help refine the direction and scope of an AI Standards Hub research project led by researchers from The Alan Turing Institute, which will aim to investigate the role of consensus-based standards in governing the use of AI in recruitment and employment across jurisdictional borders.
In Greece, the pilot “AI based strategic workforce planning tool for the public sector” as announced by the Minister of Digital Governance, is an initiative that will apply to more than 700.000 people when completed. As Homo Digitalis underlined during the workshop, harmonised standards in areas like recruitment and employment, even if voluntary, are necessary to create a culture of compliance to the new AI rules. The role of the Greek supervisory authority in enforcing the standards and the law will be paramount, especially since according to the Greek law implementing GDRP, the employees cannot authorise Homo Digitalis to submit a complaint on their behalf without disclosing their names, putting them in an impossible position.
Protect Not Surveil Campaign's Joint Statement: AI Act provisions are dangerous for vulnerable groups in the migration field
On 13 March 2024, the European Parliament adopted the EU Act on Artificial Intelligence (AI ACT).
Although the legislation is widely presented as a global first, the EU AI Act falls short in the important area of migration, as it does not prevent the high risks that exist and does not provide the necessary level of protection to vulnerable groups in society who are targeted by intrusive technologies in this area.
In its final version, the EU AI act sets a dangerous precedent. The legislation develops a separate legal framework for the use of AI by law enforcement, immigration control and national security authorities, providing unjustified ‘loopholes’ in the obligations set out in its text, and even encouraging the use of dangerous systems for surveillance of the most marginalised members of society.
Homo Digitalis, having in the last 4 years made significant legal complaints in this regard before the DPAA, as well as a series of educational, awareness-raising and co-determination actions at EU level in this regard, is following with particular concern the relevant developments.
As part of our active participation in the Protect Not Surveil campaign, together with all its members, we have published a joint statement outlining the main gaps in the protection of vulnerable groups in the field of migration identified in the text of the AI Act.
You can read the text of our joint statement here.