The EU Return Directive (2008/115/EC) in Article 8 (6) introduced an important fundamental rights safeguard for third-country nationals ordered to leave the EU because they do not or no longer fulfil the conditions for entry and/or stay. According to the Directive, Member States must provide for an effective forced-return monitoring system.
The stories of the domestic workers FRA interviewed for this paper reveal appalling working conditions and fundamental rights abuses in private homes across the EU. These stories indicate that, seven years on from FRA’s first report on domestic workers in 2011, little has changed in terms of the risks and experiences of severe labour exploitation domestic workers in the EU face.
We live in a world of big data, where technological developments in the area of machine learning and artificial intelligence have changed the way we live. Decisions and processes concerning everyday life are increasingly automated, based on data. This affects fundamental rights in various ways. This focus paper specifically deals with discrimination, a fundamental rights area particularly affected by technological developments.
The rapid development of information technology has exacerbated the need for robust personal data protection, the right to which is safeguarded by both European Union (EU) and Council of Europe (CoE) instruments. Safeguarding this important right entails new and significant challenges as technological advances expand the frontiers of areas such as surveillance, communication interception and data storage. This handbook is designed to familiarise legal practitioners not specialised in data protection with this emerging area of the law.
Civil society organisations in the European Union play a crucial role in promoting fundamental
rights, but it has become harder for them do so – due to both legal and practical restrictions.
This summary outlines the main
findings and FRA’s opinions on the different
types and patterns of challenges faced by civil society
organisations across the EU,
This Opinion by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) aims to inform the European Parliament position concerning legislative proposals on interoperability between EU information technology systems (IT systems) presented on 12 December 2017 and currently discussed by the EU legislators.
This report outlines the fundamental rights implications of collecting, storing and using
biometric and other data in EU IT systems in the area of asylum and migration.
European non-discrimination law, as constituted in particular by the EU non-discrimination directives, and Article 14 of and Protocol 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights, prohibits discrimination across a range of contexts and grounds. This handbook examines European non-discrimination law stemming from these two sources as complementary systems, drawing on them interchangeably to the extent that they overlap, while highlighting differences where these exist.
This focus report assesses how the presence of
large numbers of persons in need of international
protection affects local communities in terms of
housing, education, the local economy and social
responses.
Civil society organisations in the European Union play a crucial role in promoting fundamental rights, but it has become harder for them to do so – due to both legal and practical restrictions. This report looks at the different types and patterns of challenges faced by civil society organisations working on human rights in the EU.
Seventeen years after adoption of EU laws that forbid discrimination, immigrants, descendants of immigrants, and minority ethnic groups continue to face widespread discrimination across the EU and in all areas of life – most often when seeking employment. For many, discrimination is a recurring experience. This is just one of the findings of FRA’s second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey (EU-MIDIS II), which collected information from over 25,500 respondents with different ethnic minority and immigrant backgrounds across all 28 EU Member States.
This survey involved interviews with 25,515 people with different ethnic minority and immigrant backgrounds across 28 EU countries. It explores issues concerning discrimination as well as experiences of harassment, hate-motivated violence and discriminatory profiling.
The agency organised a high-level expert meeting in Vienna on 29-30 May 2017, bringing together participants from different EU Member States and horizons, including: human rights and fine arts academics; museum staff; curators; representatives of civil society organisations focusing on artistic freedom; and artists from the fields of photography, visual arts, comics, choreography, literature and music.
In order to communicate well with the public, institutions need to communicate unlike institutions. They must acquire qualities of speed, agility, flexibility, imagination and novelty, and experiment boldly with new approaches, especially in the rapidly evolving sphere of social media. To this end, FRA brought together an unusually wide range of disciplines and professions to share experiences on how to better communicate fundamental rights and freedoms in a world that is growing increasingly intolerant.
In 2006 the EU issued its Data Retention Directive. According to the Directive, EU Member States had to store electronic telecommunications data for at least six months and at most 24 months for investigating, detecting and prosecuting serious crime. In 2016, with an EU legal framework on data retention still lacking, the CJEU further clarified what safeguards are required for data retention to be lawful.This paper looks at amendments to national data retention laws in 2016 after the Digital Rights Ireland judgment.
The European Parliament requested this FRA Opinion on the fundamental rights and personal data protection implications of the proposed Regulation for the creation of a European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), including an assessment of the fundamental rights aspects of the access
by law enforcement authorities and Europol.
Various proposals on EU-level information systems in the areas of borders and security mention interoperability, aiming to provide fast and easy access to information about third-country nationals.
In view of the increasing numbers of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants entering the EU, the European Commission asked FRA to collect data about the fundamental rights situation of people arriving in those Member States that have been particularly affected by large migration movements. The countries covered are Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden.
EU Member States are increasingly involved in border management activities on the high seas, within – or i cooperation with – third countries, and at the EU’s borders. Such activities entail risks of violating the principle of non-refoulement, the cornerstone of the international legal regime for the protection of refugees, which prohibits returning individuals to a risk of persecution. This report aims to encourage fundamental-rights compliant approaches to border management, including by highlighting potential grey areas.
