Our grantees have helped put fundamental rights and democratic freedoms at the heart of policymaking on AI. They’ve brought marginalised communities such as migrants, autistic people and sex workers into the debate. And they’re exploring how AI is intersecting in criminal justice, climate, health and more.
As well as offering financial support, we help organisations build networks, gain skills and work collaboratively to drive change.
Issued: Nov 2022|2 yearsClosed
Homo Digitalis
€108.000 Open call 2022
Europe | Greece
With the support of the European AI & Society Fund, Homo Digitalis hired a full-time Director of AI Matters for two years, setting up the framework necessary for transitioning to a full-time organisation and strategising sustainable future growth. This helped transform Homo Digitalis into a strong human rights watchdog in the field of AI development and deployment, especially on matters related to technology-led policing and border management activities.
The European Disability Forum’s (EDF) played an important role in ensuring that the AI Act included provisions to protect the rights of persons with disabilities through advocacy for mandatory accessibility for all AI systems.
Through webinars, training sessions, and workshops on AI, disability rights, and issues like AI in elections, EDF strengthened its members’ advocacy on AI and disability rights. Their AI Policy Officer was also appointed to a Canadian government committee that is developing the world’s first standard on AI and accessibility.
With this grant, CDT Europe facilitated dialogue between lawmakers and civil society at a crucial point in the AI Act development, including a roundtable event attended by 35 government officials attended representing 15 EU member states.
Civil society coordination led to a joint CSO strategy and a common voice, prioritising a rights-based approach and a holistic framework that ensures the protection of the most vulnerable and at-risk groups; strong accountability and transparency measures; strict regulation and prohibitions as necessary on the use of AI in the context of law enforcement and migration; and access to effective remedy and redress.
This grant supported Civio to pursue long-term strategic litigation against the Spanish government, arguing that the algorithms that affect people, including their source code, need to be made public. Civio filed more than ten access to information requests about known AI/ADM systems in Spanish public administrations.
They used data journalism to raise awareness and explain the impacts of digitisation of public services to vulnerable people and were one of the founding organisations a coalition of Spanish civil society organisations working in AI topics: IA Ciudadana.
Algorithm Audit used its 'algoprudence' methodology to gather independent experts to give advice when an algorithm might be treating people unfairly, and tests tools that can find and reduce bias. To decide what "fair AI" means in each case, it combines human judgment about right and wrong with the ability of statistics to check large amounts of data.
Informed discussion around regulation of AI in Europe and beyond, and coordinated and engaged civil society coalions, including #ProtectNotSurveil focusing on AI and migration. Grant impact included the European Parliament adopting civil society's position on the AI Act, with final text adopted by the EU. Access Now worked in coalition with other civil society organisations to mainstream the debate about prohibitions in the AI Act.
ICCL developed new technical expertise to identify and correct critical flaws in the AI Act that would have severely undermined the protection of people and their fundamental rights.
ICCL was invited to brief all major European Parliament parties – their recommendations were taken on board by all of them, in more than 100 amendments. ICCL will work with the European Parliament and the Council to strengthen the Liability Directives further.
The grant enabled AlgorithmWatch to establish and deepen relations with civil society, politicians and high-level administration officials. In their advocacy efforts, they pushed for a EU-wide ban on biometric recognition technology that enables mass surveillance, and were successful in achieving many safeguards for people’s rights in the European AI Act.
This grant enabled European Patients' Forum to position themselves as the lead voice when it comes to patient engagement and AI. They organised capacity building training for patients’ rights organisations and EPF was able to join the European Commission’s regular E-Health Stakeholder Group meetings and WHO working group, working to unlock more capacity and access to healthcare with digitalization and responsible AI.
