Civil Society Demands: EU Commission Must Close e-ID Loopholes!
The final technical design of the European Digital Identity Wallet is currently under negotiation. These blueprints will have a big impact on whether or not users will be sufficiently protected when using Europe’s upcoming digital identity system. In concrete terms, this is currently being negotiated in the eIDAS implementation acts between the EU member states and the European Commission.
The positive changes in the first batch of technical rules show: Civil society works! Together with 15 organisations we thank the negotiators and acknowledge these significant improvements for privacy and human rights safeguards. The most recent proposals, however, still have some severe privacy and transparency problems that we address in our open letter to the European Commission.
What is the problem?
The eIDAS regulation lays out concrete rules for those companies and government agencies who want to access personal information from citizens’ Wallets. This could be for example an online platform, a public transport company or your doctor. It obliges these so-called “relying parties” to register their intended use of the Wallet, that is which attributes they intend to request from users. The regulation also prohibits them from asking information that goes beyond their registration. This could mean for example that, according to its registration, an online shop is only allowed to ask for your name and address but not your birth date or other information. A porn platform might use the Wallet to verify your age, but couldn’t obtain not any other information about you or use other means to track your behaviour.
To protect everyone from such illegal requests, the EU’s Digital Identity Wallet needs to know what personal information a relying party is actually allowed to access. The EU Commission, however, proposes a loophole which would leave it to the Member State that registered the relying party to decide whether the Wallet knows about the contents of the registration or not. This would allow Facebook Ireland to circumvent the protections and ask European users for everything. Furthermore, the public register of relying parties risks being useless without harmonised specifications on how to access it and what results to expect. Ultimately, the trust we will put in the Wallet will depend on the protections and transparency that we can rely on.
15 Organisations demand: The Commission’s Loopholes Must be Closed!
If these loopholes remain, this would have disastrous consequences. Any discrimination based on illegal access to attributes in the Wallet (health, gender, income, etc.) would be unchecked. Given the track record of lax data protection enforcement in countries like Ireland, companies like Facebook Ireland would likely have a wildcard certificate, virtually empowering them to request any data they want. Member States dedicated to protecting their users from illegal requests (e.g. Germany, the Netherlands, Spain or Austria), on the other hand, would be incapable of doing so.
We therefore ask the Commission to make relying party registration certificates mandatory for all relying parties and to issue a harmonized specification to access the relying party registry of each Member State.
Statements from our President, Elpida Vamvaka, at the 13th e-Business & Digital Marketing World 2024
The President of Homo Digitalis, Elpida Vamvaka, represented us with a speech at the 13th e-Business & Digital Marketing World 2024, with the central theme: “From WOW to HOW: e-commerce and digital marketing in the AI era!”, which was organized by SmartPress S.A. in December 2024.
Both her speech during the panel she participated in and the statements she gave to the organizers after the conference are now available.
You can view her statements here. You can view her speech and the panel she participated in (04:11:00) here.
The Award-Winning Cartoon Series Super-Cyber Kids Now Has Subtitles
The award-winning cartoon series Super-Cyber Kids, a production by ISC2 Hellenic Chapter, ICSI HELLAS S.A., and Homo Digitalis, with the support of ADACOM Cyber Security, Eurolife FFH, bora, and RESET CONSULTANTS, is now available with Greek subtitles! A big thank you to the amazing Panagiotis Soulos for this significant volunteer initiative!
- How can excessive use of social media negatively impact children’s performance in school or sports?
- Are there risks of personal data leaks and password theft when connecting to third-party WiFi networks?
- How do incidents of cyberbullying occur?
- What connection might cybersecurity have with the evolution of a war like the Trojan War?
- How can a teenage team win a soccer match by spying on their opponents’ social media?
Answers to all these questions and much more are provided in the five episodes of the series, available for free on our YouTube channels here.
Homo Digitalis Collaborates Once Again with the Digital World Summit Greece
We are delighted to announce that, for yet another year, the Digital World Summit Greece (DWS Greece) and Homo Digitalis are moving forward with a strategic partnership!
The Digital World Summit Greece (DWS Greece) aims to promote the democratic governance of new technologies. As a dialogue platform, it brings together diverse stakeholders and groups, shaping policies from the grassroots level to the top on issues related to artificial intelligence, platforms, the Internet of Things, and broader technological domains.
Homo Digitalis has actively supported DWS Greece since its inception, and it is a great honor for us to continue doing so dynamically. Together, we aim to contribute to the maturation of public discourse in Greece on issues related to digital rights.
You can learn more about the activities of the Digital World Summit Greece on their website, here.
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.