News

Pandemic for digital rights in South East Europe

Pandemic for Digital Rights – Report

The global public health crisis brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic confirmed that the decades-long discussion on striking a better balance between interests of safety and privacy still hasn’t provided the world with a better framework. Concentration of information, censorship, fake news, security breaches and the government officials response to these violations were some of the most notable takeaways from the report. 

Since 2014, SHARE Foundation has been running the Digital Rights Monitoring Project in an effort to sample violations and assess overall conditions in the online sphere of Serbia. Last year, the project was expanded in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) to include monitoring of incidents in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Romania. Given the current global situation, the first joint report coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic, and this led to the uncovering of some worrisome events and trends in the region.

The report presents an overview of the main violations of citizens’ digital rights in each country in the period from 31 January to 30 September 2020. Following the analysis, a list of recommendations for authorities is proposed in an attempt to curb gross digital rights violations in future situations of social crisis.

Related content

Nearly 100 public interest organisations urge the council of Europe to ensure high transparency standards for cybercrime negotiations

Today, 3 April 2018, SHARE Foundation, along with 93 civil society organisations from across the globe, sent a letter to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland. The letter requests transparency and meaningful civil society participation in the Council of Europe’s negotiations of the draft Second Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime (also known as the “Budapest Convention”) —a new […]

Round two of the battle against mass biometric surveillance

The controversial Draft Law on Internal Affairs was withdrawn from the procedure on Monday, December 26. The decision to withdraw followed two sessions of the public discussion, which was initially open for three weeks and then extended at the request of civic organisations. At the same time, the Government announced “broad consultations” in further work on the […]

Digital ecosystem of the Western Balkans: from regulatory gap to systemic approach

Alongside the innovations, technological breakthroughs and shifts in the digital industry, the third decade of the 21st century also marks a kind of institutional milestone primarily recognized through the establishment of the European Union’s Digital Single Market, accompanied by a set of rules aimed at ensuring that all rights and freedoms guaranteed to citizens by […]