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Fundacja Panoptykon

Panoptykon

Celami Fundacji są: 1) działanie na rzecz ochrony praw człowieka w społeczeństwie nadzorowanym; 2) inicjowanie oraz podnoszenie poziomu debaty publicznej na temat mechanizmów i technologii umożliwiających nadzorowanie społeczeństwa oraz wykorzystywanie informacji o jednostkach; 3) podejmowanie inicjatyw badawczych dotyczących rozwoju społeczeństwa nadzorowanego oraz analizy społecznych konsekwencji tego procesu; 4) podejmowanie działań edukacyjno-oświatowych służących zwiększeniu znajomości praw przysługujących jednostkom oraz społecznej świadomości zagrożeń związanych z rozwojem społeczeństwa nadzorowanego.

Lobbying Activity

Response to Digital Fairness Act

24 Oct 2025

The Digital Fairness Act should complement existing legal framework by: - Introducing a general client-to-service (vertical) interoperability mandate This type of interoperability is much easier for many developers to implement, and already proved quite popular (e.g. see third-party Redditand Twitter clients). It opens the possibility of building on top of the service, offering a better experience, greater convenience, and at least partialprotection against product quality degradation or user manipulation, as it makes it harder to employ dark patterns on third-party clients. It would address the European Parliaments Report on Addictive Design of Online Services and Consumer Protection, which calls on the Commission to explore opportunities to promote opening up the social network infrastructure so that users can access third-party applications or add external functionalities. - Defining digital asymmetry and digital vulnerability, where digital commercial practice should be considered unfair if it exploits digital asymmetry or digital vulnerability. - Introducing the concept of (digital) fairness by design to embed critical assessments of how products and services create digital asymmetries and exploit individual vulnerabilities in their design process. - Prohibiting unfair digital commercial practices and creating a black list of such unfair practices, including: (a) the use of attention-exploiting algorithms in default versions of recommender systems; and (b) practices seeking to lock-in users (e.g. allowing an easy import of data but not making it possible to export that data). - Introducing a right to constructive optimisation, which requires the presenceof meaningful alternative options in re lation to a particular recommender systems functioning and to other operators (including service providers and platforms) and to meaningful personalisation that would improve the quality of service and meet the expectations of consumers (terms introduced by Naudts, L., Helberger, N., Veale, M., Sax M. in A Right to Constructive Optimization: A Public Interest Approach to Recommender Systems in the Digital Services Act. J Consum Policy (2025). DOI: 10.1007/ s10603-025-09586-1). More details will follow in our responses below.
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Response to Digital package – digital omnibus

14 Oct 2025

The Commissions proposal for a Digital Omnibus is part of a broader set of worrying deregulatory measures presented as simplification. Across digital, workers rights, corporate accountability, environment, climate, health and other areas, we see that this agenda tries to construct rights as red tape, which risks weakening vital protections for people, planet and democracy. The EU digital acquis has not yet been properly implemented and enforced, and steps to boost good compliance especially through better resourcing of supervisory authorities is needed. Measures which would genuinely simplify access to rights and justice for people, especially equal access for minoritised communities, is essential. However, the call for evidence suggests that rather than focusing on these important improvements, the Digital Omnibus is set to cut essential protections and safeguards from a range of digital laws, including prematurely for laws that are not yet fully in force or in the case of part five (eID), a Business Wallet that does not even exist yet. These moves form part of the broader digital simplification package, which, among others, threatens the EUs data protection framework (midcaps) and the equal treatment of internet traffic (net neutrality), and has already seen the disappointing withdrawal of the ePrivacy Regulation and AI Liability Directive. Whilst the first part of the Digital Omnibus aims to address the flow of non-personal data, the proposed simplification measures risk undermining the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in practice. Cybersecurity reporting in part three may also pose a risk to the protection of personal data. The second part of the Digital Omnibus claims to merely tackle annoying cookie banners under Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive. However, this paragraph of the Directive is a cornerstone of EU digital rights law, which safeguards us all from arbitrary or disproportionate state or commercial surveillance in a wide range of contexts. We regret that the Digital Omnibus presents this as a benign issue, when in fact it sits at the heart of the right to privacy enshrined by the EU Charter. We are surprised that the call for evidence suggests that there will be no negative fundamental rights consequences resulting from the Digital Omnibus. The fourth part of the Omnibus considers changes to the EUs AI Act despite implementation still being in its early phases. Whilst the Act has not gone far enough to safeguard fundamental rights, it nevertheless provides an important set of measures which will enable providers and users of AI systems to mitigate bias and harm, increase transparency and accountability, and comply with EU fundamental rights. Delaying or cutting the AI Acts protections would create legal uncertainty and punish the providers that want to protect fundamental rights. Whilst they are not part of the Digital Omnibus, we note that the Commissions broader AI strategies (Apply AI; AI Continent) are focused on the massive uptake of AI, including data centers, training data, etc. We are worried that this may rely on weakening protections against the misuse of AI systems, the misuse of personal and non-personal data, and against corporate sustainability, accountability and environmental protections as seen in numerous other Omnibuses proposals.
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Meeting with Věra Jourová (Vice-President) and

14 Mar 2024 · disinformation (meeting with NGOs, government bodies and journalists)

Meeting with Alexandra Geese (Member of the European Parliament) and interface - tech analysis and policy ideas for Europe e.V. and Reset Tech UK

6 Mar 2024 · Event: Protecting the 2024 Elections: From Alarm to Action

Meeting with Paul Tang (Member of the European Parliament) and Reset Tech UK

6 Mar 2024 · Co-host event: "Protecting the 2024 Elections: Tackling Disinformation and polarisation"

Meeting with Kateřina Konečná (Member of the European Parliament)

1 Feb 2024 · Digital Policy Priorities

Response to Delegated Regulation on data access provided for in the Digital Services Act

31 May 2023

This submission summarises lessons learnt from Panoptykons case study Algorithms of trauma. It focuses on the regulators and researchers need to access more information about the *operation of platforms ad delivery algorithms*. We briefly (1) describe our case study and the research questions, (2) the data we have used, (3) results of the research, including hypotheses we *could not* verify based on the data we had, and finally (4) make recommendations about what data we think are needed (should be shared with regulators and researchers) to verify those hypotheses. Please find our full submission in the attachment.
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Meeting with Robert Biedroń (Member of the European Parliament, Committee chair)

1 Mar 2023 · Online Security

Meeting with Kosma Złotowski (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

5 May 2022 · Artificial Intelligence Act

Meeting with Alexandra Geese (Member of the European Parliament)

10 Mar 2022 · AI Act

Meeting with Alexandra Geese (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs and

10 Mar 2022 · Digital Services Act