European AI & Society Fund
The European AI & Society Fund pools resources from 17 diverse funding partners to mobilise a powerful public interest community in Europe fighting for Artificial Intelligence that serves people, society and planet.
Adessium supports the European AI & Society Fund, a pooled fund dedicated to achieving responsible AI policies and applications. The fund works on legislation for artificial intelligence, monitors its social impact and reports potential risks, such as unjust consequences for citizens and environmental damage due to technology.
Example: Homo Digitalis
A specific example of this is the work of Homo Digitalis. Executive Director Eleftherios Chelioudakis of Homo Digitalis: “Thousands of refugees and migrants are being held in Greek ‘closed control access centers’. As a border country, Greece receives money from the European Commission for these camps. Little is known about what happens there: journalists and even lawyers rarely have access.”
“We discovered that the Greek authorities monitor the camps using drones and AI software. The investigation that we carried out together with human rights watchdogs and refugee agencies revealed that this was seriously infringing the privacy of people in the camp. The Data Protection Authority in Greece issued the ministry of Asylum and Migration with a fine of 170,000 euros for this – at that time the highest fine ever imposed on a Greek ministry. The investigation brought this issue into the spotlight and created a little more insight into the policy in these hermetically sealed-off camps.”