We published our successful Report for the five-year period 2018-2023
In 2018, we started with 6 founding members, 25 volunteers and 1,000 euros in the organization’s account. Nobody knew us, but we knew what we wanted to achieve, what gap we were trying to fill, where we wanted to go.Today, we celebrate our 6 years of operation and publish our 5-year report, about everything we have achieved in the period 2018 -2023. The detailed Report contains the beginning of our story, information about the mission, vision and values of Homo Digitalis, and a thorough review of all our major successes by pillar of action, namely a) Awareness, b) Advocay , and c) Legal Actions and Interventions. Finally, in order to enhance transparency about our financial accounts, we have also included all of our Financial Reports for the entire five years period!
You can read our Homo Digitalis’ “Five Year Report 2018-2023” in Greek here or in English here. The report was curated by our Director on Human Rights and AI, Lambrini Gyftokosta.
Looking back we are happy, proud and excited, because until the summer of 2023, we: gained over 130 volunteers, have steadily increased our revenue by 353% every year, filed over 20 complaints with Greek and European authorities, managed to fine Clearview AI €20 million (the largest in Greece), visited more than 30 schools and raised awareness with our actions for more than 3500 students and citizens, gave more than 40 media interviews in Greece and Europe, supported more than 50 joint actions with other Greek and European organisations in the field of digital rights, acquired more than 10.000 followers on social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X), published more than 150 articles of scientific, technical and legal interest on our website with the contribution of our volunteers, became the first and only organisation from Greece to be a member of EDRi, the European Digital Rights Network; and although we started as a purely voluntary organisation, we managed to hire our first employee!
On this journey we were not alone. One of our greatest successes is our collaboration with a large network of universities, organisations, institutions, research centres and all our member volunteers who helped us take our actions one step further!
Looking ahead we are optimistic. We are moving forward dynamically, conquering small and big goals that will bring us even closer to the world we dream of and want to build together!
The Hellenic Data Protection Authority fines the Ministry of Migration and Asylum for the "Centaurus" and "Hyperion" systems with the largest penalty ever imposed to a Greek public body
Two years ago, in February 2022, Homo Digitalis had filed a complaint against the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum for the “Centaurus” and “Hyperion” systems deployed in the reception and accommodation facilities for asylum seekers, in cooperation with the civil society organizations Hellenic League for Human Rights and HIAS Greece, as well as the academic Niovi Vavoula.
Today, the Hellenic Data Protection Authority identified significant GDPR violations in this case by the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum and decided to impose a fine of €175.000 euro – the highest ever imposed against a public body in the country.
The detailed analysis of the GDPR highlights the significant shortcomings that the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum had fallen into in the context of preparing a comprehensive and coherent Data Protection Impact Assessment, and demonstrates the significant violations of the GDPR that have been identified and relate to a large number of subjects who have a real hardship in being able to exercise their rights.
Despite the fact that the DPA remains understaffed, with a reduced budget, facing even the the risk of eviction from its premises, it manages to fulfil its mission and maintain citizens’ trust in the Independent Authorities. It remains to be seen how long the DPA will last if the state does not stand by its side.
Of course, nothing ends here. A high fine does not in itself mean anything. The Ministry of Immigration and Asylum must comply within 3 months with its obligations. However, the decision gives us the strength to continue our actions in the field of border protection in order to protect the rights of vulnerable social groups who are targeted by highly intrusive technologies.
You can read our press release here.
You can read Decision 13/2024 on the Authority’s website 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.
Our new action before the European Data Protection Board on its case regardin Meta's Pay Or Okay model
Last Thursday, 7 March, together with European Digital Rights and other important civil society organisations, we submitted an Open Letter to the European Data Protection Board (EDPS) on Meta’s #PayOrOkay model.
We call on the EDPS in its opinion to condemn these commercial subscription models that allow those with the money to pay for their privacy and those without to be at the mercy of the voracious data collection practices of big tech companies.
You can read our letter in detail here. This is Homo Digitalis’ second relevant action against Meta’s Pay or Okay model on a pan-European level.
Homo Digitalis at the second annual Digital Policy Leadership Summit in Brussels!
Homo Digitalis at the second annual Digital Policy Leadership Summit in Brussels!Last weekend, Homo Digitalis participated in the second annual Digital Policy Leadership Summit in Brussels
Over the course of these two days, alongside an amazing group of talented and brilliant individuals, we dove deep into critical conversations and shared our knowledge and experience to cultivate and strengthen new forms of leadership to promote equitable and inclusive digital policy.
We also discussed issues of policy strategizing, including racial justice in AI, and addressing misinformation in the context of elections.
Our group was represented by Eleftherios Chelioudakis. We are grateful to the organizers for the great support that made our participation possible!Read more about the summit and its objectives here.
Homo Digitalis talks to the newspaper Kathimerini about the body-worn cameras of the Hellenic Police and our related actions
The upgrade of the Police surveillance equipment is expected to be completed in the near future, as the tender for the supply of cameras has ended.
These are about 400 24-hour cameras to be installed on patrol cars, as well as 2,000 “wearable” cameras, i.e. integrated into the uniforms of police officers, which will be able to record at will and transmit live images to the operations centre using telecommunications networks.
Homo Digitalis spoke to Kathimerini and journalist Elvira Krithari about our actions together with Reporters United & The Press Project regarding the use of cameras from 2020 & 2021 and the investigation conducted by the Data Protection Authority since then. Our team was represented by Eleftherios Chelioudakis
We would like to thank the journalist for her interest in our actions! You can read her article here.
More about our relevant actions from 2020 & 2021, here.
Privacy Day is not a day of wishes, but a day of responsibility!
28 January is the international day dedicated to the protection of personal data!
Since March 2018, and for almost 6 years now, Homo Digitalis has carried out important actions for the protection of personal data in all 3 pillars of its action, those of awareness-raising, policy-making and legal actions.
At our celebratory event last month, we spent about 2 hours talking about all our successes. For today, we prepared a short video of a few seconds to present some highlights of these successes. Because today is not a day of wishes, but a day of responsibility! You can watch our short video https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7157389006190608384here.
Insights from our Celebration event: Digital Freedom Fund and University of Amsterdam Speech
At our celebration of 5 years of Homo Digitalis & 20 years of European Digital Rights (EDRi) at The Benaki Museum, we were honoured to host a talk by Dr. Alexandra Giannopoulou, digiRISE Project Manager of the Digital Freedom Fund and Researcher at UvA-University of Amsterdam!
In her presentation, she informed the audience in detail about the DFF’s grant programs and its important educational activities under the “digiRISE: Digital Rights are Charter Rights workshops” program.
She also made extensive reference to the funding received in 2023 by Homo Digitalis to develop preparatory legal actions against national legislation providing for the retention of electronic communications metadata.
Finally, he underlined the important cooperation that exists between DFF and Homo Digitalis both with regard to the project “Decolonising the digital rights field” and in the context of the annual meetings of strategic legal actions.
In fact, this last meeting was successfully co-organized by DFF & Homo Digitalis in September 2023 in Athens! You can watch the video of the event in the following link here.
Insights from our Celebration event: European AI & Society Fund Speech
At our celebration event for 5 years of Homo Digitalis & 20 years of European Digital Rights (EDRi) at The Benaki Museum, we had the honour to host presentations from important foundations and organizations that have chosen to support our actions!
One of these is the European AI & Society Fund , which enables a diverse ecosystem of civil society organisations to shape policies around AI in the public interest, and mobilises the philanthropic sector across Europe to support this vital work.
The organisation’s Programme Director, Alexandra Toth, travelled to Athens and delivered an excellent talk on the challenges posed by AI applications for our democratic societies, the actions they support, the funding packages available, and of course the significant successes of EDRi & Homo Digitalis in this area.
We have immense gratitude to the European AI & Society Fund, as after 5 years of full-time volunteer activities, they gave us the opportunity in 2023 to hire the first full-time staff in our organization, the Director of Human Rights & AI, Lambrini Yftokosta Also, we would like to thank them for the funding under the Learning & Development program that made it possible to organize our workshop!You can learn more about the European Artificial Intelligence & Society Fund here.