90 seconds to midnight: Keynote speech at Homo Digitalis 5th anniversary

Dear friends at Homo Digitalis, colleagues, civil society and public authorities,

We are a few seconds to midnight.

Not literally, we have some time to celebrate and party until actual midnight, but the clock is ticking. We are at 90 seconds to midnight according to the relatively unknown publication called the Doomsday Clock, hosted by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. The doomsday clock was created in the aftermath of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Doomsday Clock has a dark but accurate name; it describes how close we are to human annhilation taking into consideration issues such as the expansion of nuclear weapons, ongoing armed conflicts, geopolitical tensions and other threats such as the current climate emergency. According to the last report, we are now at only 90 seconds to midnight; this is the closest we have been to human annhiliation since the clock was created. The war in Ukraine (with its threat of nuclear war, often underestimated) and the fact that we are heading towards the precipice when it comes to climate emergency are some of the key factors.

But thankfully, it is not midnight, neither according to my watch nor to the doomsday clock. We have a few hours to celebrate Homo Digitalis work, and some more time to ensure the continuation of human civilisation. Still, the clock is ticking. There is no magic recipe to solve all of the huge problems we are facing, but there is something that has always worked: Continuous, passionate, intelligent, hard-working, kind and relentless work from grassroots activists that put their time and efforts to make sure we have a better society. This is exactly what Homo Digitalis has done for the last 5 years. Thank you Homo Digitalis for your kind and relentless work.

From fighting internet censorship, to campaigning against facial recognition or fighting against mass surveillance, homo digitalis has been the perfect real life David fighting Goliath. I cannot count the number of times I have heard in the policy room of the EDRi office: “wow, did you see what Homo Digitalis has done?”, “aren’t they only volunteers?”, and “how can be so professional and so nice at the same time?”. Friends at Homo Digitalis always tell me they look up to the EDRi network and the EDRi office to inspire them, but in fact it is us who look up to them for inspiration.

I am honoured to be here with you to celebrate Homo Digitalis 5th anniversary. As the policy director in the EDRi Brussels office I have had the opportunity to see Homo Digitalis grow from its creation until now.

Since I met Eleftherios in 2018, until today’s event, Homo Digitalis has set a track record, probably unparalleled compared with the other volunteer-run members of EDRi, of consistent, accurate, detailed, and (let me insist on this once again) KIND work fighting for a better world for all.

Being in Athens, as being in my home town in Andalusia in Spain, reminds me of those trying to join Europe in search for a home. Whether it is trying to cross jumping fences in Northern Morocco or crossing the Greek borders, all these people have an ally fighting for their rights: Homo Digitalis has had a very important role analysing and fighting against the surveillance and repression of people trying to enter Europe. Along with other organisations, Homo Digitalis makes Europeans proud, while organisations like Frontex make us ashamed. Thank you Homo Digitalis for protecting migrants and refugees coming to Europe.

Civil society does not have an easy task at hand. Many European countries are trying to prevent homo digitalis and many others fighting for human rights, online or offline. The Pegasus revelations have shown how both the Greek and Spanish authorities, among many others, have used illegal spying of mobile phones against journalists, politicians, and activists. Given that any mobile device has way more personal information than a personal diary, the consequences for our democracies are vast.

Same thing for facial recognition. Homo Digitalis complaint against Clearview AI was a landmark against the abuse of private and public institutions to deploy mass surveillance of people as if we lived in China. The battle is not over, and there is more to be done, but any act of resistance against these invasive technologies help us to build a better Europe. Thanks Homo Digitalis for fighting against facial recognition in Europe.

This is not the only success they had, of course. In December 2022 the Greek Data Protection Act was revised following Homo Digitalis complaint to the European Commission. The revised articles concern the implementation of the the use of data protection by the police in Greece, and Homo Digitalis managed to include better safeguards that were missing from the original text. Thanks Homo Digitalis for protecting our personal data.

Despite the effort of many human rights defenders, journalists and activists, we are still a few seconds to midnight and the threats we are facing are not “digital”. Why does the work of Homo Digitalis and other digital rights groups matter, then?:

When people try to cross EU borders, they carry phones to call their relatives, find their way around and access the internet. Trade union activists are routinely under surveillance when they protest in the streets of cities that have facial recognition cameras. People engaging against the creation of the metro station in my former neighbourhood of Exarchia can be tracked by the second in all they do: their location can be accessed by law enforcement officers, their Facebook messages can be read, their calls can be intercepted and their publications on social media can be taken down using excuses such as “national security” or the threat of “terrorism”. Women all over the world get their period tracked not by their period apps, but also by thousands of companies they never heard of what get access to their most intimate details. In essence, even if digital rights are not the most crucial threat, we need to defend them if we want to protect women, civil society and journalists. And that is what makes Homo Digitalis work crucial.

Let’s take one core digital rights topic that Homo Digitalis works on: Mass surveillance. Mass surveillance is not nowadays like in the German film the Life of Others, where a dedicated Stasi officer listened to private confirmation of a single family. Now, surveillance is more comprehensive, efficient and invisible. Working in the American National Security Agency would be any Stasi officer dream.

Image from the film The Life of Others

In essence, mass surveillance is a time machine. A time machine that only travels to the past. Edward Snowden showed us with the revelations of mass spying operations by US intelligence agencies that the point is not to predict people’s future actions, although some of it is possible. Mass surveillance practices are based in the continuous gathering of very intimate data of as many people as possible, all the time. When a human rights activist gets to be dangerous enough for those in power, the time machine is activated: Did you ever cheat on an exam or on your partner? Did you ever miss a payment to your ex-wife or ex-husband? Did you ever insult your boss in what you thought was a private conversation with your wife? When needed, all of these flaws that we all have can and will be used against human rights activists. Homo Digitalis work on Artificial Intelligence, now with the additional capacity thanks to the recent hire of Lamprini Gyftokosta as the Director on AI and Human Rights, is and will be essential. Thank you Homo Digitalis for redoubling your efforts to protect human rights in the context of AI threats.

I have to admit I have painted a rather difficult task in front of us. But as soon as you spend two minutes talking with any of my friends at Homo Digitalis you will think that fighting against Goliath is very easy and a rather happy task. Eleftherios organises revolutions with his big smile and good humour, I have seen Elpida dancing among Turkish activists who live in exile and I have seen Kostas laugh and joke while preparing a serious meeting in the European Parliament: Homo Digitalis could also be called Homo Smiley. And smiles are essential if you want to build a better future. You can make people concerned mentioning that spy agencies routinely scan everything you do online; you can can scare your friends talking about facial recognition or Facebook’s lack of privacy; but you can only make people fight back if they can see a better future in your eyes. That is what I see in my friends at Homo Digitalis/Homo Smiley.

Thank you Eleftherios, Lamprini, Kostas, Stefanos, Elpida and everyone else in Homo Digitalis for your good humour, your laughter, your dance moves and for being the nicest party animals I have ever met. We may be a few seconds to midnight, but tonight we will dance and celebrate hours before and after midnight. Thank you, Homo Digitalis, for making us smile.