Civic Democracy Watch, a joint initiative by a group of Polish NGOs dedicated to protecting human rights, the rule of law and transparency in Poland has been officially launched.

European Digital Rights (EDRi), Foundation for Information Policy Research (fipr) and Panoptykon Foundation provided comments on selected key elements to the Law Enforcement Data Protection Directive. In the analysis, we focus on the most problematic points of the Directive regarding: transferring data to third countries, sharing data for law enforcement purposes and the risk of violating human rights.

Panoptykon Foundation have received the Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and the Media Democracy Fund’s grant for investigation of the implications of algorithmically driven categorization and resource distribution to Poland’s 1.8 million unemployed citizens.

Glenn Carle (Former Deputy National Intelligence Officerfor Transnational Threats at the CIA), Katarzyna Szymielewicz (President of the Panoptykon Foundation) and Robert Pritchard (Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and Founder of The Cyber Security Expert) comment on US debates on private and state internet surveillance.

Watch video (Al Jazeera)

Sharing information is less and less our free choice. The society requires high visibility: those, who don't expose themselves become suspicious or excluded. But sharing is just the beginning. The real purpose behind it is profiling. Be that our insurance or health care scheme, unemployment benefit or school curriculum – more and more services depend not so much on who we are in reality, but on the quality of our digital profile. Who designs these algorithms? What business and political stakes are behind? Katarzyna Szymielewicz comments on contents of our digital profiles and its implications.