Our joint campaign for Cybersecurity Month with the Share Foundation has been launched
Together with the Share Foundation and other civil society organisations, we are participating in a joint campaign for European Cyber Security Month!
Through puzzles, we are clarifying some key terms and tools related to our safe and private online browsing!
If you want to participate, you can follow Homo Digitalis on our social media (X, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram) to solve the puzzles and get informed yourself!
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.
We published a joint study with EDRi on age verification online
Age verification is the process of predicting or confirming a person’s age online. Increasingly we hear from governments and technology companies that age verification is a tool we should use to ensure the safety of children online.
For example, in the EU, the draft regulation establishing rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse (CSAR) proposes to enforce age verification forms for private messaging services (e.g. WhatsApp, Signal) and app stores operating in the EU, as well as to provide strong incentives to use this tool on all other digital platforms and services, such as social media.
The European Digital Rights network, including Homo Digitalis, has prepared a relevant study with a rich analysis of more than 30 pages, freely available here.
It is important to ensure that our children have access to age-appropriate online content. However, quick technological ‘fixes’ such as age verification online will not make a difference or really solve the complex problems we face. On the contrary, the adoption of age verification systems can have serious human rights implications, especially for the children they are intended to protect.
Homo Digitalis participates in a New York University meeting on Artificial Intelligence
Last week, Homo Digitalis was invited to participate in the strategic meeting “Co-creating a shared human-rights agenda for AI regulation and the digital welfare state”, organized by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University Law School and Amnesty Tech’s Algorithmic Accountability Lab!
It is always a great honor to see our work to promote and protect human rights recognized internationally, and we thoroughly enjoyed sharing ideas, expertise and knowledge with an amazing group of academics, civil society organizations and other stakeholders around the world.
⚡ Our group was represented at the Strategy Session by Board Secretary Eleftherios Chelioudakis. Stay tuned for more exciting partnerships!
We call on European legislators to ensure full consistency with the principles of the rule of law in the AI ACT
We continue the actions of co-shaping political decisions at European level for the proposed European regulation on Artificial Intelligence (AIAct)!
Together with the Civil Liberties Union for Europe, European Center for Not-for-Profit Law Stichting, European Civic Forum and 60 other CSOs, we call on EU-level legislators to ensure that the proposed provisions are fully consistent with the principles of the rule of law, including transparency, accountability and access to justice. You can read our joint letter here.
Action is also coming at national level!
We demand an end to the use of mass biometric surveillance technologies by law enforcement authorities in public places
Today, 120 civil society organisations and 60 academics, scientists and other experts on new technologies are joining forces to stop the use of mass biometric surveillance technologies by law enforcement authorities in public places.
It is a great honour for Homo Digitalis to be part of this initiative. Already since 2020 with European Digital Rights we have been involved in the #ReclaimYourFace campaign, in which more than 250,000 people across the EU signed our petition to ban these practices.
You can read the joint statement here.
We express our concerns about Article 6 of the proposed AI legislation
As the European Union enters the final stage of trilateral negotiations on the proposed AI legislation, more than 150 civil society organisations, including Homo Digitalis, are concerned about a major loophole regarding the classification process for high-risk systems in Article 6!
Big tech companies have managed to convince the European Parliament and the Council to adopt proposed provisions that essentially leave them to decide for themselves whether the system they develop should be considered “high-risk” or not!
Read our joint statement to learn more about the challenges involved here.
Homo Digitalis in Brussels to speak at two important events
Homo Digitalis made a lightning trip to Brussels this week!
There we attended the annual plenary meeting of the Justice, Equity & Technology (JET) Table at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), which we have been members of for more than 2.5 years now, studying the implications of using technologies to defend specific social groups based on class and race.
We also successfully participated for another year in FreedomNotFear, where we had the great pleasure to organise a talk regarding the use of intrusive technologies in the field of border protection and our related legal actions for 2019-2023.
For Homo Digitalis, our Board Secretary, Eleftherios Chelioudakis, travelled from Greece to Brussels
Homo Digitalis co-organizes with the Digital Freedom Fund the Strategic Litigation Meeting for the first time in Greece!
The Digital Freedom Fund’s Strategic Litigation Meeting is back!
In collaboration with Homo Digitalis and with funding from Luminate, the retreat will take place in Athens from September 11-14. If you are planning to take legal action against major tech companies or other class actions, register now here.
The retreat hosts training sessions and workshops aimed at developing participants’ legal skills and tactics in a relaxed and collaborative environment with other colleagues. DFF also hopes to be able to sponsor some of the cases that participants develop during the meeting.
After two online versions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, DFF is pleased to bring the event back to its true essence as an in-person retreat where participants can disconnect from other activities and commitments to work in depth on the study and strategic planning of their cases.
In the latest post on the DFF blog, legal counsel César Manso-Sayao shares more details about the retreat, as well as some thoughts regarding recent developments on the liability of large platforms. Read it here.
Artwork by Kruthika N.S.