COVID-19 Litigation Fund Case Studies
The COVID-19 Litigation Fund was open for applications in the second half of 2020. It is not currently accepting new applications. See more information here.
The COVID-19 Litigation Fund was made possible thanks to funding from the Open Society Initiative for Europe, Luminate and the Sigrid Rausing Trust.
Invasive surveillance through thermal scanning
Thermal scanning has expanded in pandemic times to places like airports, schools, workplaces, and retailers. The concern is that unlawful and unevidenced use could lead to unnecessary violations of data
Intrusive impacts of remote proctoring by universities in Germany
As exams were shifted online during the COVID-19 pandemic, some German universities began to use proctoring software to monitor students taking their exams. This software may violate fundamental rights by
Sharing of health data by German public health insurance providers
In Germany, public health insurance providers will soon begin transferring anonymised health data of millions of people to institutions for research. However, the security standards for the storage and transfer
France criminal records database expanded during COVID-19
In March 2020, France introduced an emergency law imposing a strict lockdown on the whole country. People who did not comply were subject to fines and even jail time. Authorities
Intrusive and discriminatory impacts of remote proctoring in the UK
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic many educational institutions in the UK have moved exams online and are turning to remote proctoring as a monitoring solution. This potentially results in a
Women’s rights website blocked in Spain
Spanish authorities blocked the website of Women on Web (WOW), a non-profit organisation sharing information on safe medical abortions. This coincides with an increase in barriers faced by women and
COVID-19 apps in Europe violating data protection and privacy
To help deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, governments are developing and rolling out apps related to contact-tracing, symptom-tracking, exposure notification, and quarantine-enforcement. Many governments are not taking data protection and
Complaints to data protection authorities pushing for the investigation of data brokers, adtech companies and credit rating agencies in the advertising technology industry.
Organisation: Privacy International
Grant type: Emergency Litigation
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
defenddigitalme is taking legal action against the UK Department of Education to ensure that the data of students is collected and processed lawfully, fairly, and transparently.
Organisation: defenddigitalme
Grant type: Single Instance Litigation
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
Litigation challenging website censorship and demanding that access to sexual and reproductive health services be recognised as a key part of the right to information in Spain.
Organisation: Women’s Link Worldwide, with Women on Web
Grant type: COVID-19 Litigation Fund
Thematic area: Free flow of information online
Litigation challenging the collection of personal data of airline passengers and the sharing of this data with government authorities.
Organisation: epicenter.works and Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte
Grant type: Single Instance Litigation
Thematic areas: Privacy and data protection
Litigation against universities in Germany to stop the processing of personal data through automated online proctoring software.
Organisation: Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte
Grant type: COVID-19 Litigation Fund
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
Litigation to improve security standards and shorten retention periods for sharing of health data by insurance providers with research institutions.
Organisation: Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte
Grant type: COVID-19 Litigation Fund
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
Research to prepare for litigation challenging examples where data protection law is misused by the Spanish government to limit freedom of information and expression
Research preparing for litigation challenging an inadequate data protection regime for people residing in Germany without German citizenship.
Organisation: Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte
Grant type: Pre-litigation Research
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
Litigation to restrict access to photographs and personal information from biometric ID cards.
Organisation: Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte
Grant type: Emergency Litigation
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
Legal action demanding access to information about algorithm-driven technology used by state bodies in Germany
Organisation: Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte
Grant type: Emergency Litigation
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
Research to prepare for litigation to challenge the practice in Germany of accessing sensitive personal data on the mobile devices of migrants and asylum seekers upon arrival in the country.
Organisation: Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte
Grant type: Pre-litigation Research
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
Appeal to gain access to the content of an algorithm used to allocate judges to cases.
Organisation: ePaństwo Foundation
Grant type: Single Instance Litigation
Thematic area: Human rights standards in the use and design of technology
Coordinated complaints to data protection authorities across the EU pushing for changes to the online advertising industry so that users have control over how their data is used.
Organisation: Open Rights Group, Civil Liberties Union for Europe and Panoptykon
Grant type: Pre-litigation Research and Single Instance Litigation
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
Facebook censorship and changing corporate policies on content moderation towards a fair, transparent, and regulated system.
Organisation: Panoptykon Foundation
Grant type: Single Instance Litigation
Thematic area: Free Flow of Information Online
Litigation preventing the expansion of a criminal record database to include COVID-19 lockdown infringements.
Organisation: La Quadrature du Net
Grant type: COVID-19 Litigation Fund
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
Cross-jurisdictional litigation action to stop the use of COVID-19 apps that do not respect people’s rights to privacy and data protection.
Organisation: Civil Liberties Union for Europe, with Access Now and member organisations across 12 EU countries
Grant type: COVID-19 Litigation Fund
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection; Human rights standards in the use and design of technology
Research to prepare a strategic case challenging restrictions to copyright exceptions that limit freedom of expression and access to information.
Organisation: Digital Republic Bulgaria, with Defesa dos Direitos Digitais, Homo Digitalis, Centrum Cyfrowe, and Association for Technology and Internation (ApTI)
Grant type: Pre-litigation Research
Thematic area: Free flow of information online
After a legal challenge brought by two victims of rape, the UK police agreed to revoke a “digital strip search” policy.
Organisation: Big Brother Watch
Grant type: Single Instance Litigation
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
Litigation ensuring the increased roll out of thermal scanning technology does not violate privacy and data protection rights.
Organisation: Big Brother Watch
Grant type: COVID-19 Litigation Fund
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection; Human rights standards in the use and design of technology
Litigation to prevent the use of remote proctoring software until data rights and equality issues are resolved.
Organisation: Open Knowledge Foundation
Grant type: COVID-19 Litigation Fund
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection; Human rights standards in the use and design of technology
Research to prepare a strategic case challenging digital practices that interfere with the rights to freedom of thought and opinion.
Organisation: Susie Alegre and Centre d’étude sur les conflits
Grant type: Pre-litigation Research
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
Litigation against the UK government challenging the UK Investigatory Powers Act, which grants the government mass surveillance powers.
Organisation: Liberty
Grant type: Single Instance Litigation
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
Litigation in the UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal challenging data breaches by the UK Security Service.
Organisation: Liberty
Grant type: Single Instance Litigation
Thematic area: Privacy and data protection
A coalition in the Netherlands successfully challenged the use of the “SyRI” risk-scoring algorithm by the Dutch government.
Organisation: A coalition of NGOs, the Dutch trade union federation and two citizens, led by the Public Interest Litigation Project (PILP-NJCM) and Platform Bescherming Burgerrechten
Grant type: Single Instance Litigation
Thematic area: Human rights standards in the use and design of technology