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: Apr 2021|3 yearsClosed
European Network Against Racism (ENAR)
€120.000 Open call 2020
Europe
Using this grant, ENAR ran a project to better understand the new harms linked to AI and automated processes. It hosted three roundtables with members in Greece, Denmark and Croatia and held two membership consultations to learn how racialised groups experience these harms.
It also researched how data-driven systems affect racialised communities in Europe, which strengthened its advocacy on AI in employment and the AI Act. The project also allowed ENAR to build more strategic coalitions with partners like EDRi and PICUM.
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.
ESWA advanced online advocacy for sex workers’ rights and strengthened community engagement. ESWA held action-planning meetings with members focused on EU policy developments and in 2024 organised Europe’s first in-person Digital Rights Convening for sex workers, member organisations, and allies. ESWA also succesfully advocated for sex workers’ digital rights in a number of EU policies and regulations, including the Digital Services Act and and AI Act.
With this grant, Glitch carried out the first intersectional research on deepfake image abuse against Black women, filling a gap in the field. It used the findings to make recommendations for reducing racialised online gender-based violence, and assessed the EU AI Act for gaps in intersectional policy. It also worked with a group of Black women experts on its response to Ofcom's Illegal Harms consultation.
As part of the Digital Services Act Human Rights Alliance, Mnemonic worked with other civil society groups to win changes that better protect users' rights, freedoms and safety. These included transparency reporting on how platforms use automation to moderate content, a requirement to notify users when their content is demoted or restricted, and extra due diligence on the impact of moderation policies for very large online platforms.
The European AI Fund also helped Mnemonic build its capacity to take part in EU lawmaking and gain visibility in European civil society through coalitions.
ANEC engaged a consumer AI expert to inform the AI standardisation process, both at a technical and policy levels. ANEC contributed to the AI legislative process by drafting standards and helping consumer and civil society advocates translate consumer protection demands into practical technical asks.
With support from the European AI & Society Fund, Moje Państwo grew into a European digital policy advocacy organisation by attending conferences, discussions and workshops, it strengthened its expertise in how AI and automated decision-making systems are used in the public sector, and in how to influence policy at national and EU level.
It is now recognised as an expert on the state's use of technology and has joined two working groups at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister in Poland, one on AI and one on data management.
Two of its reports were published on the government's AI portal for public sector staff, and some of its proposals appeared among the amendments to the AI Act. It also won a case forcing the Polish Ministry of Justice to disclose the algorithm that randomly assigns cases to judges, which could change how public bodies share this kind of information with citizens.
