PROJECTS
ZEPHIRO is now devoting time and concentrating energy on several main subject areas:
I) Research & Policy Interventions
in 2 focus areas:
1. LGBT+ & Digital Rights;
2. LGBT+ Bullying.
II) Campaigning and Awareness-Raising
via educational & cultural activities in 2 focus projects:
a) SapfoFest – Queer Summer Festival;
b) Social Queer Centre Project.
ABOUT THE PROJECTS
1. LGBT+ & Digital Rights
This project aims to initiate a novel legal and political research and advocacy agenda on LGBT+ & Digital Rights on global level that could serve as a foundational platform and empirical body of evidence for effective policy interventions by the civil society and constitutional lawsuits to challenge the ‘gay propaganda’ laws existing in certain countries; as well as demintrate the prevalence blocking and filtering of LGBT-related content in the Western Democracies. It aims to open the debate within academia and raise awareness within policy-making and judicial circles by demonstrating the harm and damage of digital inequality to the LGBT+ communities.
We are only beginning to advance this agenda, and so far we managed to:
1. convene a high-level panel to initiate the debate;
2. liase with 2 prestigious reserach institutes for LGBT & Big Data case-study (currently submitted and pre-selcted to semi-final by Open Society Foundations).
You can watch the panel, moderated by our Director Dr. Monika Zalnieriute and hosted by the Council of Europe at the 8th International Conference on Computers, Privacy and Data Protection, Brussels, Belgium, 21-23 January 2015, where ILGA's Executive Director Renato Sabbadini also contributed to pushing forward of the LGBT+ Digital Rights research and policy agenda! We are happy and determined to bring this matter on the agendas!
Case - Study: Implications of Algorithmic Decision Making for LGBT+ Communities: Legal and Policy Recommendations
By coopreating with two research institutes, namely the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society/Data J Lab at Tilburg University (The Netherlands), and the Interaction Design and Technologies in Practice research groups at IT University of Copenhagen (Denmark), ZEPHIRO serves as Principal Investigator (PI) for the first project case-study, which focuses on the rise of large-scale data collection and algorithm-driven analysis targeting LGBT+ communities, who are especially vulnerable to privacy and other fundamental rights intrusions.
2. LGBT+ Bullying
This project aims to provide rigorous factual basis for the evidence–based policy-making and development of Lithuanian legal framework & mandatory policies for addressing LGBT+ bullying in schools, and contribute to a broader educational reform – an inclusion of sex education on the school curricula; and repeal of the anti-LGBT+ censorship law (Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information).
We have been working on LGBT+ bullying issues with local civil society orgnazitions, and have submitted a project proposal for the Open Society Foundations to conduct a big, represantative survey in Lithuania.