The Year in Digital Rights 2021
The Digital Freedom Fund counted down to Human Rights Day 2021 with a blog series exploring ten of the year’s biggest digital rights stories. Read the full series below.
What the EU COVID Pass Meant for Digital Rights
In 2021, the Digital COVID Certificate was rolled out across Europe, facilitating cross-border movement and re-entry to many public spaces. The pass has become yet another ubiquitous digital feature of everyday life, but its introduction did
The UN Makes Strides on Children’s Digital Rights
In March 2021, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child adopted a long-awaited general comment on children’s rights in the digital environment, marking an important step forward for protecting children online. The landmark guidelines
The German Government’s Facebook Page Removal
In July 2021, Germany’s data protection commissioner advised all government bodies in the country to shut down their official Facebook pages because of the company’s persistent problems with data compliance. The move was a principled stance
When Tech Workers Rose Up and Unionised
In January 2021, after years of activism, Google workers unionised. The launch of the Alphabet Workers Union marked the start of a year characterised by tech workers rising up, banding together and calling out structural inequalities
The #AbolishFrontex Movement Grows
2021 saw the rise of the #AbolishFrontex movement, an international campaign demanding the shutdown of Frontex, the infamous European border agency accused of persistently violating the human rights of people on the move. Activists claim that
The Facebook Oversight Board’s First Decisions
In 2021, the Facebook Oversight Board delivered its first decisions, sparking fresh criticism about the board’s effectiveness in holding Facebook to account. Digital rights activists have long called for better oversight of Facebook and other social
Saying Goodbye to the UK’s “Immigration Exemption”
In May 2021, the controversial “immigration exemption” preventing immigrants in the UK from exercising their data protection rights was ruled unlawful. Following a protracted three-year legal battle by Open Rights Group and the3million, the Court of
Taking Uber’s Racist Facial Recognition Algorithm to Court
In October 2021, two unions in the UK announced they were taking legal action against Uber’s racist facial recognition software. In the first case of its kind in Europe, Uber is accused of using a facial
Why the Global Facebook Outage Mattered
On 4 October 2021, Facebook and its subsidiaries went down for over five hours. Five hours may seem a relatively small window of time to be without social media, but the global outage exposed a world
The Pegasus Project’s Exposé on Mass Surveillance
In July 2021, the Pegasus Project exposed the chilling extent of global mass surveillance by states and companies around the world. The results of this major investigative effort — led by over 80 journalists from 17