Civitates supports TI EU’s advocacy efforts for the adoption of policy recommendations that address the current lack of transparency and accountability, focusing on the EU’s proposed policies as part of the proposed regulation on transparency and targeting of political advertising and the Digital Services Act. TI EU is working in conjunction with TI National Chapters and other CSOs.

The grant supports ICCL’s advocacy towards the European Commission for clear guidance on the interpretation of article 5(a) of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Article 5(a) has the potential to limit the use of personal data by Big Tech. The current phrasing of the article is ambiguous, and without clear guidance from the European Commission, it could be interpreted in a way that infringes on privacy and provisions of the GDPR.

Civitates supports SOMO’s project to establish a network of European CSOs and academics to work together to challenge the monopoly power of the Big Tech sector. The network will build on a nascent gathering of a number of European CSOs that came together as a loose coalition to do advocacy on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and will expand the range of actors working on monopoly power, market dominance and competition law issues. Civitates’ contribution represents seed funding for the launch of the network and SOMO will further fundraise to sustain it in the long run.

Civitates supports their work on the implementation process of the Digital Services Act and foster harmonisation of this implementation process across EU Member States. The project entails facilitating discussions between experts and national institutions in the Czech Republic around this topic, interact and feed into the EU networks Frank Bold Society is part of and raise awareness on those issues among the general public.

Civitates supports CDT’s work on the implementation of the Digital Services Act (DSA). With the support of this grant, CDT will provide legal and technical analysis, coordinate civil society’s input in the implementation process and organise high level events.

Civitates supports WTM’s work on the study of online political advertising and their participation in the discussions around the EU code of practice on disinformation.

Civitates supports BEUC’s project on evidence gathering through a consumer survey to feed into the Commission’s Digital Fairness fitness checks.

DRI has developed a Toolkit to Monitor Social Media for CSOs and journalists with their grant from Civitates in 2020. The current project aims to develop a training module to make the tool more accessible so that civil society organisations can easily implement it at their social media monitoring efforts around electoral processes.

Civitates’ grant contributes to CEO’s work focused on Big Tech. CEO aims to collect information on lobbying practices of the latter, which will in turn be used to file complaints with the EU transparency register, produce research reports and advocate for better regulation of lobbying at the EU level.