United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced the appointment of Fabrizio Hochschild Drummond of Chile as his Envoy on Technology. The newly founded position of the Envoy will lead the implementation of the Secretary-General’s Roadmap on Digital Cooperation in close consultation with the Member States, the technology industry, civil society, and other stakeholders.  The Envoy will [...]

Six Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have filed a complaint against the European Parliament, and its COVID-10 testing website. The complaint filed by the civil society group noyb on behalf of the MEPs challenges the deceptive cookie banners of the testing website, the vague and unclear data protection notice, and the potentially illegal transfer [...]

According to a press release, members of the European parliament (MEPs) have expressed a deep concern about the many authoritarian regimes around the world that are using the COVID-19 pandemic to ‘repress  civil society and critical voices.’ In their annual report which mainly focuses on assessing the human rights situation in the world, MEPs noted [...]

Over 50 civil society organisations have sent a letter to the European Commission demanding that clear regulatory red lines are introduced in the commission’s upcoming legislative proposal on artificial intelligence (AI), to prevent the use of AI which violates fundamental rights. The signatories argue that, without appropriate limitations on the use of AI-based technologies, there [...]

Haki na Sheria, a Kenyan civil society organisation has launched a documentary on double registration. The film highlights the plight of Somalis, a community in northern Kenya and Somalia. Following the civil war in Somalia in the 1990s, some Kenyan Somalis were registered as refugees in refugee camps in Kenya. With the digitalisation and interlinkage [...]

During her speech at the virtual Singapore FinTech Festival 2020, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva pinpointed how the digital future will hinge on key four cornerstones. (a) Private sector innovation: to measure the needs of people and businesses, provide diverse products and services, and undertake the risks necessary for innovation. (b) [...]

The Broadband Cost Reduction Directive stewarded by the European Commission is intent on facilitating and encouraging the implementation of high-speed communication networks through deployment cost reductions. Public consultation hopes to collect views and input from stakeholders on the implementation to analyse the past while examining future options. The evidence that the Commission has gathered so [...]

A resolution of the European Council reiterates strong support for encryption but also requires enabling law enforcement to access content in a readable and usable format where authorisation is lawfully issued. The resolution calls for an active discussion with the technology industry - in particular national and international communication service providers (while also involving research [...]

The Austrian Supreme Court has delivered its final judgement in the case Glawischnig-Piesczek v. Facebook Ireland Ltd, requiring Facebook to delete all defamatory statements about Austrian politician Eva Gawischnig-Pieczek globally.  In this long-running case, the Austrian Supreme Court sought the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on preliminary questions regarding [...]

Privacy International (PI) and 13 other civil society organisations from Europe and Africa are calling for urgent reforms to EU aid and co-operation programmes to ensure they promote privacy protections in third countries and do not facilitate the use of surveillance that violates fundamental rights. The recent public release of hundreds of EU documents indeed [...]