​Facial recognition surveillance poses a threat on free societies - it invades our privacy, strengthens racial bias, enables pervasive policing & mass surveillance.​

Activists and citizens can now push the European Commission to protect them against facial recognition technologies.

On 29th October 2020, Spain’s government extended the state of alarm until May 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The situation in the country remains critical, with the daily number of newly reported cases rising since mid-December 2020.

Anti-lockdown protests erupted in Austria, Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands. Some are fueled by politics, some by extremism.

As previously reported on the CIVICUS Monitor, on 22nd October 2020, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal ruled that abortion due to foetal abnormality is unconstitutional.

After the popular gay dating app Grindr was fined by the Norwegian data protection authority for misusing user data, all eyes are on other authorities to take steps to protect their citizens against intrusive dating apps.

When Poland's autocratic government imposes abortion ban, threatens free courts, LGBTQ people, they attack democracy & human rights. The EU must step up.

While the EU tries to cool discussions about the vaccine passport, EU member states, international trade organisations and a small town in South Germany take steps to implement it.

The vaccine passport is the hot topic now in Brussels. If the EU & governments add free movement to the list of liberties only available to those who get the vaccination, this will add to the social divide within countries.

​While governments around the world are rightly focussing on vaccination strategies to protect people from COVID-19, a debate has heated up as to what the vaccine will entail for our civil liberties – including our right to move freely in the EU.