Advancing digital rights in Europe
What we do
DFF funds three types of activities: litigation, pre-litigation, and post-litigation. We accept grant applications through regular calls for applications, which are announced on our grants page.
DFF facilitates events and develops resources to support organisations and individuals in pursuing litigation to advance digital rights.
Our Grantmaking Case Studies
The UK Investigatory Powers Act gives the government the power to gather information about what people say and do online even when they are not suspected of a crime In...
The UK Investigatory Powers Act IPA grants the government power to collect and store information about everything people do and say online This includes emails texts calls location data and...
Internet users are being profiled and targeted by various online and digital business practices in a way that influences how they think Examples include the use of targeted advertising or...
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...
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...
In 2019 the UK Police brought in new regulations on how police officers should gather data based evidence to investigate certain criminal cases Under the policy police can request that...
Copyright is often used as a means to suppress or censor content online The EU Information Society Directive allows for exceptions for example in cases of parody or citation serving...
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...
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...
Facebook and other online platforms have been criticised for their role in arbitrarily censoring legal content that is shared through their services Without explanation Facebook removed pages belonging to Spoleczna...
Our Community Strengthening & Support Projects
Our goal is to initiate a process that challenges the structural causes of oppression in order to work towards a digital rights field in which all groups in society have their voices heard and which works to protect the digital rights of all.
DFF launched an initiative to support the work of racial, social, and economic justice organisations in the digital context.
Our aim is to increase awareness of the potential of the EU Charter of fundamental rights in the defence and protection of digital rights, to conduct capacity building, and to strengthen the knowledge and ability of different stakeholders in enforcing digital rights using strategic litigation.
DFF develops resources, organises convenings, meetings and workshops that help to improve the strategic litigation skills of the community of organisations and individuals working on digital rights in Europe.
Resources
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News
From our blog
Digital Freedom Fund – Summer 2023 update on new grants
In June we decided on our latest group of grant recipients, approving eleven grants worth over EUR 400,000 supporting litigation to advance digital rights in Europe. Going forward we aim to put out a summary like this after each new
Big Tech Platforms: With great power and responsibility should also come greater accountability
This blog post is the first in a two-part series on platform accountability. In this instalment, we would like to share some initial reflections around this topic and invite you to join our thematic Strategic Litigation Retreat, to be held
Transforming our grantmaking
At the start of 2023 we published our new strategic plan for the next four years. A key aspect of this strategic plan is decolonising our grantmaking to increase the accessibility of grants to all actors in the digital rights
Upcoming events
We invite you to join our upcoming second Strategic Litigation Retreat focused on platform accountability and collective redress in Munich, Germany, from June 24th to 28th, 2024.
We are pleased to cover all accommodation and travel expenses for participants. If you are actively engaged in platform accountability or collective redress litigation within the Council of Europe, we encourage you to apply via our registration link: Click to apply here.
We extend our gratitude to Luminate Group for their generous support in making this event possible. We look forward to welcoming you to Munich very soon!
During this exclusive three-day consultation and feedback workshop, litigators and collective redress experts from diverse jurisdictions will converge. Together, we will delve into strategic discussions on using collective redress mechanisms to advance digital and Charter rights litigation.
This workshop is a crucial component of the digiRISE project, and we are offering it as an invite-only platform for collaborative engagement. If you’re keen to participate, kindly contact us at projects@digitalfreedomfund.org to express your interest.
We collaborate with external consultants to enhance our team’s expertise and capacity.
We warmly welcome individuals with experience in the following areas to get in touch with us: