Our future with technology is a polarizing topic. While some urge that advancements pose grave threats to personal privacy and other fundamental rights, others believe whole-heartedly in the promise of new technologies to eradicate long-standing inequalities at a pace that humans have been unable –…

Together with our German partners from Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte, we are currently fighting to stop the collection of airline passenger data in Europe. To this end we just filed seven complaints in Austria with the Data Protection Authority regarding the practice of processing passenger data…

The responsibility of communications platforms like Google, Twitter, and Facebook for their users’ online activities is a key factor affecting innovation and free speech in the 21st century. Still, the degree of liability for intermediaries – and the extent of online speech regulation – varies…

The base rate fallacy is the tendency to ignore base rates in the presence of specific, individuating information. Rather than integrating general information and statistics with information about an individual case, the mind tends to ignore the former and focus on the latter. This phenomenon is…

Read the German version of the article here.

According to the PNR Directive, which was adopted in 2016, all European member states must oblige airlines to forward passenger name records (PNR) to a central authority. In Austria, the Passenger Data Centre at the Federal Criminal Police Office has…

Shortly after the EU gave a green light to upload filters, two laws were proposed in Austria - each with the alleged goal of tackling online hate speech - that rang the alarm bells.

The law on "care and responsibility on the net” forces media platforms with forums to store detailed data about…

Despite weeks of intense protests from civil society, MEPs have voted in favour of upload filters and Article 13. The fundamental rights NGO epicenter.works announces that it will take this law to the highest court and will continue to use all means to stop this excessive censorship infrastructure. 

With just two weeks to go until the final vote on upload filters in the European Parliament, one hundred MEPs have pledged to vote against Article 13 of the proposed Copyright Directive. Many citizens feel like their legitimate fears about the future of the internet are not taken seriously, as…

It has been two-and-a-half years since net neutrality laws were enacted in the European Union — are they working?

Comprehensive new research by the Vienna-based nonprofit epicenter.works answers this question, examining if telecom companies are breaking net neutrality rules, how regulators are…

The principle of net neutrality has been protected in the European Union since 2016. Half a billion people benefit from the protection against network discrimination by telecom companies. Net neutrality is a founding principle of the internet and one of the most essential digital rights. It ensures…