Fundación Maldita.es, together with Fundación Éticas, leads this coalition, which is made up of several organizations dedicated to the defense of digital rights: Interferencias, Xnet, Panoptykon Foundation, Huxir and Fundación Karisma, among others. Organizations and individuals can also join AxJA.
The main objective is that bad practices or possible infringements by private companies and institutions do not go unnoticed, but can be pointed out and even challenged through legal means in order to protect our digital rights: those rights from the offline world that must also be protected online.
For example? As its first projects, AxJA has focused on three different topics: the use of cookies by political parties, the digital divide and the use of facial recognition. In this way, different cases that may negatively affect the population will be analyzed, such as the automation of processes that exclude vulnerable populations (such as the elderly) or the use of computer programs that use facial recognition in universities. AxJA will collaborate with public institutions to strengthen privacy and data protection laws and with the private sector to improve the development and implementation of certain technologies.
The coalition aims to highlight the lack of democratic oversight and transparency in the use of technological tools such as the implementation of artificial intelligence systems and automated decision-making processes, which Maldita.es has pointed out on numerous occasions because of the effects they have on citizens.
Maldita.es contributes to this project through its work of providing citizens with tools, technology and information so they can make informed decisions. Through our different sections we work on fact-checking, but we also contribute to media and digital literacy with the aim of achieving a public debate more based on facts and raising citizens’ awareness about disinformation and its social impact.
Fundación Éticas is a pioneering entity in the auditing of algorithmic systems and has worked for international institutions such as the United Nations, the Inter-American Development Bank, the OECD and the European Commission. It participates in and leads different initiatives that seek to raise awareness about the need to monitor and demand transparency in the use of algorithms and automated decision-making systems.