About

About Us

Who we are

The Digital Freedom Fund (DFF) is a non-profit organisation that exists to enable the Digital Rights Community to advance human rights in digital spaces through strategic litigation.

We define:

  • “Digital rights” as any human rights claims that relate to the use of technology and/or are engaged in the context of digital spaces.
  • “Digital Rights Community” as those tackling human rights violations in the digital space, including activists, litigators, technologists, movements, local communities, researchers, and non-profit organisations. This also includes people who focus on other human rights issues that intersect with digital rights, like racial justice and environmental justice. 

What We Do

DFF enables digital rights strategic litigation by providing funding and strategic input (“Litigation Support”) and bringing the digital rights community together to improve litigation skills and coordinate litigation efforts (“Community Programme”). DFF’s core focus is on the Council of Europe but our Community Programme also supports activists in Latin America and Africa. The impact of legal decisions we support reaches far beyond those directly involved and helps set precedents and create a framework for interpreting international human rights law.

We can provide litigation support throughout the lifecycle of the case—from pre-litigation research through the litigation itself, from its first to last instance in the courts, and post-litigation activities—to ensure that impactful digital rights cases are not lost due to a lack of resources, coordination, or legal expertise.

Our Community Programme brings the Digital Rights Community together to strategise, build impactful partnerships and deepen our collective knowledge on key topics such as AI and digital democracy. We do this through convenings, including digital rights workshops, strategic litigation retreats and clinics. We also develop crucial resources such as our strategic litigation toolkit and guides to support litigators in bringing stronger cases.

Our Vision

A society in which everyone uses technology justly and fairly so that all individuals and communities can fully enjoy their human rights in digital spaces.

Our Mission

To advance and protect human rights in digital spaces through strategic litigation.

Our Values

Our Impact

150

Supported grants

€5.5 million

Awarded

Diverse groups

Advancing the rights of groups most affected by digital harms, including Roma, people on the move, LGBTQI+ communities, women, and gig workers.

200+

Positive outcomes

Legal, policy, and social outcomes, including landmark court victories that have stopped discriminatory welfare systems, protected Uber drivers and Glovo riders, ended censorship by Facebook, and reduced government surveillance of citizens.

30

Countries

90

Supported groups

Thematic focus

On human rights related to AI, platform accountability, digital democracy, digital environmental justice and spyware.

400+

Organisations in our network

Why Strategic Litigation?

We understand strategic litigation to mean legal cases that:

  • have an impact extending beyond those directly involved in the particular legal case;
  • achieve wider legal, policy or societal change; and
  • are embedded in a wider strategy or movement.

Strategic litigation is a powerful force for justice and human rights. It is both bold and binding.

Through it injustices can be stopped and a  better future reached.

Strategic litigation stimulates meaningful and systemic transformation where it’s most needed.  It is a way to confront injustice directly and reshape the systems that allow injustice and human rights violations to persist. More specifically, strategic litigation has the power to:

  • establish groundbreaking legal precedents that shift laws, policies, and everyday practices;
  • spotlight injustices, igniting public awareness and solidarity;
  • empower those most harmed to speak out, seek justice, and reclaim power; and
  • hold governments and Big Tech accountable for violating human rights.
See our current strategy and theory of change here.

Our Approach

With our unique approach combining funding for digital rights strategic litigation projects with community strengthening, we have been instrumental in shaping and strengthening the digital rights community and the digital rights eco-system as a whole since 2018. We adopt anti-oppressive practices in our work and have started to move towards participatory grantmaking. We believe in expanding the digital rights community by breaking work silos and supporting litigation that  prioritises affected communities and an intersectional approach. This ensures that litigation is grounded in real world struggles and embedded in social movements.

An integral part of our approach is the belief that our internal power structures and working methods should also embody the same anti-oppressive values and principles as our external facing work.  Through our distributed leadership model, our Co-Directors set strategic direction and uphold governance, while decision-making authority is meaningfully delegated to teams and individuals closest to the issues at hand. This fosters collective ownership, more agile decision-making, and a stronger and more resilient team.

Read more on our blog: