Digital Freedom Fund – summer 2025 update on new grants
Digital Freedom Fund – summer 2025 update on new grants
In June 2025, we decided on our latest group of grant recipients, approving 11 grants worth around EUR 380,000 supporting litigation to advance digital rights in Europe. We’ve now made over 130 grants worth just under EUR 5 million in total.
The 11 latest grants were selected from a total of 59 applications, our most popular call for applications yet, beating the previous highest amount of 50 applications in 2024, and almost doubling our pre-2024 record of 34 applications.
The 59 applications were spread across 22 different countries. Spain and Albania were the most represented with six applications each. The 11 latest grants are spread across 11 countries: our first ever grants in Romania and Sweden, alongside funding in Albania, France, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Serbia, Spain, Turkey and the UK.
New Grantee Partners
The eight new grants supporting litigation are as follows.
- European Roma Rights Centre is challenging the lack of access to essential public services by Roma due to digitalisation in Albania and Bulgaria.
- Interet a Agir is seeking accountability from companies for exploiting AI data workers by extracting their personal data without proper consent.
- Center for Intimacy Justice‘s litigation utilising the Digital Services Act to tackle gender-based censorship of sexual and reproductive health content is expanded to cover TikTok as well as Meta.
- Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia are preparing for litigation challenging the use of spyware.
- 5Rights Foundation are challenging safety concerns around a popular app used by children, including ease of access to minors by bad actors and a high likelihood of exposure to harmful content.
- Litigation seeking to gain algorithmic transparency to support the rights of gig workers.
- Litigation to set judicial precedent affirming access to audiovisual evidence as a fundamental safeguard against torture.
- Litigation against the government’s blocking of a major LGBTQI+ website.
The three new grants supporting pre-litigation activities are as follows.
- Civil Rights Defenders are preparing to challenge a new law in Sweden that forces government bodies to “snitch” on people they think may be in the country without valid documentation.
- NOVACT – International Institute for Nonviolent Action and SUDS – International Association for Solidarity and Cooperation are preparing for litigation against Spanish corporations that enable surveillance, digital warfare, and oppression against the Palestinian community.
- Association Accept is preparing to challenge digital identity systems in Romania that discriminate against the LGBTQI+ community.
Not all organisations can be publicised at this stage. As more of the projects are made public and progress we will share more information about the groups involved and outcomes of the litigation through our case study page.
Analysis
35 of the 59 applications received were for litigation track support and 24 for pre-litigation research support. The largest grant amount this round was EUR 100,000, and the smallest grant amount was EUR 16,000. The average size of a litigation grant this round was EUR 38,000, and for pre-litigation, it was EUR 28,000.
The trend of new applicants continued with 39 of the 59 applications being from first-time applicants. Seven of the 11 grants this round went to groups receiving DFF funding for the first time, taking the total number of organisations or individuals we have supported up to 81.
We also continue to see a vast range of different topics and issues covered in the applications we receive.
| Cost of technology and digital inclusion | 1 |
|---|---|
| AI and digitalisation of services | 14 |
|---|---|
| Digital welfare state | 6 |
| Prisoner access to the internet | 3 |
| Worker rights plus AI | 4 |
| AI legislation | 1 |
| Free flow of information and censorship | 22 |
|---|---|
| Access to information | 5 |
| Freedom of expression and information | 4 |
| Gender-based violence and discrimination | 2 |
| Online hate speech and content moderation | 7 |
| Website blocking | 2 |
| Competition law/anti-trust | 1 |
| SLAPPs | 1 |
| Data protection and privacy violations | 9 |
|---|---|
| Cybersecurity | 1 |
| Data Adequacy | 1 |
| Profiling | 2 |
| Databases/registries | 2 |
| Data use and processing | 3 |
| Surveillance | 13 |
|---|---|
| Border surveillance | 3 |
| Corporate accountability for surveillance | 2 |
| Data retention | 2 |
| Government surveillance, inc. facial recognition | 2 |
| Spyware | 4 |
Outcomes report
We recently published Highlighting Litigation Success in the Digital Rights Community, a report that summarises and analyses the impact achieved through strategic litigation we have supported between 2018 and 2024.
Looking ahead
Our latest call for applications closed in July 2025, with another batch of grants to be approved by November 2025. Demand continues to increase with 73 applications, a new record number, beating the 59 from last time mentioned above. Another call for applications will open around December 2025.
Remember to check out the resources on our website, including our application guides and litigation toolkit, to start thinking about or preparing a future application.
We are continuing our pilot of a participatory decision-making process. In the first round of the pilot, all pre-litigation research applications were assessed by a group of community peers, who also decided which applications to support, instead of DFF. We will now expand the pilot to cover litigation grant applications as well. Check out this blog co-written with members of the peer group reflecting on how the pilot has gone so far.