On January 7^th, a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) was published on the website of the European Commission, calling for a ban on biometric mass surveillance practices (protocol number ECI(2021)000001). Homo Digitalis has the great pleasure to actively participating in this initiative.

We call on the European Commission to strictly regulate the use of biometric technologies in order to avoid undue interference with fundamental rights. In particular, we ask the Commission to prohibit, in law and in practice, indiscriminate or arbitrarily-targeted uses of biometrics which can lead to unlawful mass surveillance. These intrusive systems must not be developed, deployed (even on a trial basis) or used by public or private entities insofar as they can lead to unnecessary or disproportionate interference with people’s fundamental rights.

Our goal is to collect 1 million signatures within 12 months from citizens residing in 7 different Member States, at least. Undoubtedly, this is a very difficult, but important endeavor.

We will start collecting signatures in the beginning of February, so stay tuned!

It is a great pleasure and honor for Homo Digitalis that two of our founding members are actively participating in this initiative. More precisely, Konstantinos Kakavoulis is the Data Protection Officer of this ECI, while Eleftherios Chelioudakis is one of the ECI’s citizens- members.

You can read in detail all related info on EC’s website here.