Tag: Fundamental Rights

Pornographic deepfakes as a violation of women’s rights

On By officialblogunioIn EssaysLeave a comment 
Mariana Coelho (Master's in European Union Law at the School of Law of University of Minho)

1. Preliminary considerations

The rise of new technologies has consistently provided more challenges for human rights and democratic values all over the world. With the widespread use of AI technologies, it has never been easier to create manipulated content, namely of sexual nature. And if deepfakes have shown to be increasingly realistic, the risk is ever growing.

In fact, the last few days have seen the emergence of a new trend on social media websites, such as TikTok and X: mukbang[1] and/or ASMR[2] videos created entirely through AI systems, featuring predominantly women of color, and replicating their mannerisms and accents. In these videos, AI models have even been trying to convince the viewers that they are real people, with most of them being dotted with an unimaginable level of realism. If it is this easy to create seemingly innocent videos, that can blur or even virtually delete the line between real people and AI models, the issue of pornographic deepfakes is, or should at least be, now more than ever, at the center of public discourse, with women’s rights being at risk at levels never before seen.

Digital sexual violence targeting women has been a persistent and widespread concern for several years, and its ongoing prevalence has elevated it to a priority within the EU’s digital policy agenda. From political efforts, legislative action and digital literacy initiatives, the EU has undoubtedly become “the world’s leading tech watchdog”.[3] In face of how quickly violent discourse seems to be spreading through multiple societies, the European Parliament has increased pressure on the Commission and Member States to act more quickly and aggressively on the matter of women’s rights, with Irish Member of Parliament Maria Walsh calling for stricter criminal penalties for those who create and disseminate pornographic deepfakes in December 2024.[4] The MEP called to attention the fact that current legal frameworks that exist in the EU, no matter how revolutionary, have proven to be insufficient to combat malicious uses of technology, that are used to harass, defame and exclude women from public discourse and professional life every day.

Continue reading “Pornographic deepfakes as a violation of women’s rights” →

Presentation of the Commentary on the Charter of Fundamental Rights given by Judge Nuno Piçarra, published in the JusGov Research Paper Series in the SSRN

On By officialblogunioIn ReviewsLeave a comment 
By the Editorial Team 

A Commentary of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union was edited under the scientific coordination of Alessandra Silveira, Larissa Araújo Coelho, Maria Inês Costa and Tiago Sérgio Cabral, with the editorial support of JusGov (Research Centre for Justice and Governance) and the School of Law of the University of Minho.

This scientific outcome was presented at the School of Law, by Judge Nuno Piçarra, on the 29th of November 2024. The intervention of this Judge of the Court of Justice [Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ)] is now published in the JusGov Research Paper Series (access here). The ECJ judge’s presentation is a unique opportunity to understand the importance of this scientific contribution to a thorough understanding of the Charter and its importance in the ECJ’s judicial activity.

Continue reading “Presentation of the Commentary on the Charter of Fundamental Rights given by Judge Nuno Piçarra, published in the JusGov Research Paper Series in the SSRN” →

Editorial of March 2025

On By officialblogunioIn EditorialsLeave a comment 
Alessandra Silveira [Editor of this blog, Coordinator of Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence “Digital Citizenship and Technological Sustainability” (CitDig), UMinho]

The new world (dis)order and the European Defence Union

(on three years since the invasion of Ukraine)

On 24 February 2022, while the planet was still rising from the depths of the pandemic, barbarity returned to the European continent – all recorded by drones and satellites in a conventional war perpetrated amid the digital age. The return of war to the European continent urges us to re-read Hannah Arendt, because totalitarian solutions are still tantalisingly tempting. [1] Arendt explains that nowhere else does Fortune – good or bad – play such a decisive role in human affairs as on the battlefield. That is why violence in war carries with it an additional element of arbitrariness.[2]

In “The Origins of Totalitarianism” from 1951, Arendt traces the subterranean elements that crystallised the astonishing singularity of the totalitarianisms of the 20th century – and their systematic attempt to make human beings superfluous. The same perplexity that arises before the terrifying images of Bucha or Mariupol – but where does this horror come from? – led Arendt to coin the expression “the banality of evil”. With this concept, she wanted to explain that someone does not have to be a monster to perpetrate an evil act – and that people can commit it for banal reasons, without ever having decided whether to be good or bad, but simply because of their inability to think, to put themselves in the place of the victims, to exercise a broad mentality or the Kantian universalisation test.[3]

Continue reading “Editorial of March 2025” →

The EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement – A “race to the bottom” when it comes to EU’s climate goals?

On By officialblogunioIn EssaysLeave a comment 
Ana Cardoso (PhD candidate & Master's in European Union Law at the School of Law of University of Minho)

I.

The European Union (EU) is one of the most active actors in the field of environmental protection worldwide.[1] However, today some of the EU’s most important partners – namely the United States of America (USA) – have adopted highly protectionist positions[2] which aim to push forth economic growth without any consideration for its environmental consequences or international commitments.[3]

The issue has been so controversial, that Bloomberg Philanthropies has announced it will step in to cover the USA’s contribution to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), given that the country had been responsible for funding around 21% of the organisation’s budget, and its withdrawal would mean a severe disruption to environmental protection actions all around the planet.[4]

Additionally, Russia’s acts of continued aggression against Ukraine have emphasised the EU’s energetic dependency on unreliable partners making the need to boost the EU’s own energy autonomy more apparent, which the Commission proposes to do through renewables, energy efficiency and other European Green Deal (EGD) policies.[5]

Continue reading “The EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement – A “race to the bottom” when it comes to EU’s climate goals?” →

Commentary to the Bezirkshauptmannschaft Landeck judgment: a failure by the CJEU in appropriately balancing privacy, data protection and the interests of law enforcement [1]

On By officialblogunioIn EssaysLeave a comment 
Tiago Sérgio Cabral [Editor of this blog and Project Expert for the Portuguese team in the "European Network on Digitalization and E-governance" (ENDE)]

1. Background

The Court of Justice’s decision in Case C- 548/21 (Bezirkshauptmannschaft Landeck) probably got less attention than it deserved from legal scholars due to being issued at the same time as other high profile data protection cases and connected to Directive 2016/680/EU (the “Law Enforcement Directive”) instead of the GDPR. However, there are good reasons to engage in a deeper analysis of this case. The Bezirkshauptmannschaft Landeck judgment addresses access by law enforcement to mobile phones, which nowadays store large amounts of personal data that most people prefer to maintain private, but that law enforcement considers key for criminal investigation purposes. The Court of Justice’s conclusions regarding this issue are surprising as they seem out of step with previous case-law. Other less controversial but still relevant takeaways from this judgment, such as those regarding the scope of the concept of “personal data” may have relevance beyond data protection in the context of law enforcement.

    2. The Court of Justice’s Decision

    The case arises from a request for a preliminary ruling from the Regional Administrative Court of Tyrol (Austria). The factual background of the judgment is relatively straightforward: Austrian customs authorities seized a package for a data subject (CG) containing 85 grams of cannabis. Pursuant to this seizure, law enforcement conducted a search of CG’s residence, questioned him, and requested access to connection data on CG’s mobile telephone. CG refused and, as such, law enforcement seized his mobile phone, including SIM and SD cards.

    Continue reading “Commentary to the Bezirkshauptmannschaft Landeck judgment: a failure by the CJEU in appropriately balancing privacy, data protection and the interests of law enforcement [1]” →

    International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women: a brief analysis of Directive (EU) 2024/1385 of 14 May 2024

    On By officialblogunioIn ReviewsLeave a comment 
    Ana Cardoso (PhD candidate at the School of Law of University of Minho)

    Last Monday, 25 November, marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, stressed that MEPs “stand with those abused, traumatised, bullied and brutalised”, as Parliament buildings were illuminated as part of the “Orange the world” campaign.[1]

    According to United Nations (UN) estimations, a woman dies every 10 minutes victim of gender-based violence, with almost one in three women being subjected, at least once in their life, to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both, globally. Making gender-based violence against women and girls one of the most prevalent and pervasive human rights violations.[2]

    In the EU, on May 2024, the European Parliament and of the Council approved the Directive (EU) 2024/1385 on combating violence against women and domestic violence, recognising that a specified regulation on this issue was needed. With a Directive being a legally binding instrument that requires the fulfilment of detailed objectives within a defined timeframe, the Member States are therefore obligated to alter or adapt their own legal systems, as a way to provide a better, more encompassing and overall equivalent protection to victims of gender-based violence.

    Continue reading “International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women: a brief analysis of Directive (EU) 2024/1385 of 14 May 2024” →

    New open access publication available – The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union: A Commentary

    On By officialblogunioIn News1 Comment 
    By the Editorial Team
    ▪

    We are pleased to announce the release of the English version of the Commentary on the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, coordinated by Alessandra Silveira, Larissa Araújo Coelho, Maria Inês Costa and Tiago Sérgio Cabral. This work is an important addition to our continuous work (within the JusGov research centre) to build a body of publications that contribute to the advancement of legal knowledge on fundamental rights in the context of the European Union and is an extensive update of the Portuguese version published in 2013.

    Continue reading “New open access publication available – The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union: A Commentary” →

    The Italy–Albania Protocol on migration management: between new schemes of asylum externalisation and risks of systematic violations

    On By officialblogunioIn EssaysLeave a comment 

    Valentina Faggiani (Associate Professor of Constitutional Law at University of Granada)
    ▪           

    The trend towards the externalisation of migratory policy has been reaffirmed in the recent Italy–Albania Protocol, whose objective is to institute a new model. This Protocol aims at intervening to overcome a real problem: the systemic crisis of asylum that Italy is suffering. The idea that inspires it and the scheme are clear and have some original profiles: if the situation in the reception centres in Italy is unsustainable, why not transfer migrants in irregular situation and asylum seekers to reception centres instituted outside the Italian territory, but managed, controlled and financed by Italy? In this country, particularly in frontline areas such as Lampedusa, on the one hand, foreigners suffer serious and systematic violations of fundamental rights; on the other hand, there has been a strong feeling of uneaseamong the local population, who live in an unsafe environment characterised by the proliferation of criminality and situation of violence.

    The idea has the characteristic of extrema ratio: the purpose of building a new model of migratory flux management. Regarding the innovation profiles, it is interesting to observe that in this case Italy does is not delegating, as it did in the Memorandum of Understanding with Libia, the liability for controlling the fluxes and for pushing back the migrants to their country of origin, but it assumes the management of all phases, and it extends the jurisdiction and the cost that it implies. It is a much more extensive and complex project. Indeed, the political and economic context of Albania apparently offers more guarantees than other countries.

    Continue reading “The Italy–Albania Protocol on migration management: between new schemes of asylum externalisation and risks of systematic violations” →

    Editorial of September 2023

    On By officialblogunioIn EditorialsLeave a comment 
    By the Editorial Team
    ▪

    Impact of climate change on children and young adults

    At the end of November 2020, international media[1] reported that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) had ordered 33 European governments to respond to a landmark climate lawsuit lodged by four children and two young adults from Portugal – Duarte Agostinho and Others, no. 39371/20. The media pointed out that this could be the most important case ever tried by the European Court; it is the first occasion the Court has had the opportunity to grapple with climate change and its impact on individuals. The case was filed in September 2020 after Portugal recorded its hottest July in 90 years. It was initiated three years ago following the devasting forest fires in Portugal that killed more than 120 people in 2017. The ECtHR will be holding a hearing for this case on 27 September 2023.

    The young applicants are being represented by British barristers, experts in environmental and climate change law, and supported by the London and Dublin based NGO “Global Legal Action Network” (GLAN).[2]  At the request of GLAN, some Editors of UNIO provided a (pro bono) legal opinion for that case concluding that the Portuguese judicial regime is not equipped with a mechanism that allows the prosecution of all the pursued/targeted countries and that any decision issued by a Portuguese court would have limited territorial scope.  

    Continue reading “Editorial of September 2023” →

    Finally, the ECJ is interpreting Article 22 GDPR (on individual decisions based solely on automated processing, including profiling)

    On By officialblogunioIn Essays3 Comments 

    Alessandra Silveira (Editor)
    ▪           

    1) What is new about this process? Article 22 GDPR is finally being considered for before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) – and on 16 March 2023, the Advocate General’s Opinion in Case C-634/21 [SCHUFA Holding and Others (Scoring)][1] was published. Article 22 GDPR (apparently) provides a general prohibition of individual decisions based “solely” on automated processing – including profiling – but its provisions raise many doubts to the legal doctrine.[2] Furthermore, Article 22 GDPR is limited to automated decisions that i) produce effects in the legal sphere of the data subject or that ii) significantly affect him/her in a similar manner. The content of the latter provision is not quite clear, but as was suggested by the Data Protection Working Party (WP29), “similar effect” can be interpreted as significantly affecting the circumstances, behaviour or choices of data subjects – for example, decisions affecting a person’s financial situation, including their eligibility for credit.[3] To this extent, the effectiveness of Article 22 GDPR may be very limited until EU case law clarifies i) what a decision taken solely on the basis of automated processing would be, and ii) to what extent this decision produces legal effects or significantly affects the data subject in a similar manner.

    2) Why is this case law so relevant? Profiling is an automated processing often used to make predictions about individuals – and may, or may not, lead to automated decisions within the meaning of the Article 22(1) GDPR. It involves collecting information about a person and assessing their characteristics or patterns of behaviour to place them in a particular category or group and to draw on that inference or prediction – whether of their ability to perform a task, their interest or presumed behaviour, etc. To this extent, such automated inferences demand protection as inferred personal data, since they also make it possible to identify someone by association of concepts, characteristics, or contents. The crux of the matter is that people are increasingly losing control over such automated inferences and how they are perceived and evaluated by others. The ECJ has the opportunity to assess the existence of legal remedies to challenge operations which result in automated inferences that are not reasonably justified. As set out below, the approach adopted by the Advocate General has weaknesses – and if the ECJ adopts the conditions suggested by the Advocate General, many reasonable interpretative doubts about Article 22 GDPR will persist.

    3) What questions does Article 22 GDPR raise?  Does this Article provide for a right or, rather, a general prohibition whose application does not require the party concerned to actively invoke a right?  What is a decision based “solely” on automated processing? (which apparently excludes “largely” or “partially” but not “exclusively” automated decisions). Will the provisions of Article 22 GRPD only apply where there is no relevant human intervention in the decision-making process? If a human being examines and weighs other factors when making the final decision, will it not be made “solely” based on the automated processing? [and, in this situation, will the prohibition in Article 22(1) GDPR not apply]?

    Continue reading “Finally, the ECJ is interpreting Article 22 GDPR (on individual decisions based solely on automated processing, including profiling)” →