As part of our volunteering program, EFA is excited to introduce Sara Doczi to you. Sara, our 2nd international EFA intern, comes to us from Cambridge University in the UK and will help us in a range of public facing and back office activities as part of their placement.
Meet Sara Doczi
I recently finished my second year studying Human, Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge in the UK. I am an international student there: I grew up in Budapest, Hungary and only moved to the UK for university. I got the chance to travel to Melbourne for 5 weeks through the Laidlaw Scholarship, which combines research with practical experience. In the first summer of the programme, I completed a self-led research project about democratic backsliding in Hungary.
Why am I interested in digital rights?
My interest in politics and policy began from my experience living under the Orbán-regime in Hungary which I later explored through my research project. This is what drew my attention to AI – both in how it can be used to misguide populations and as it pertains to intellectual property.
The lead up to the 2026 Parliamentary Elections in Hungary was largely characterized by fear mongering about the war in Russia-Ukraine, a propaganda project that pioneered the use of generative AI for a political campaign in the country: the government used AI-generated videos of Hungarian soldiers dying at war as part of their re-election campaign.
Understanding and advocating for digital rights is crucial in preventing political scenarios such as these: in creating a political landscape in which a population has both a good enough understanding of artificial intelligence to not fall victim to it, and the checks and balances that prevent a campaign such as this one from ever seeing the light of day.
However, AI policy discourse must also not be limited to practices so explicitly harmful and undemocratic. The Hungarian government’s use of generative AI highlights a larger pattern of normalisation of use in both professional and everyday life. Even in my first few days in Melbourne, I noticed an alarming number of promotional materials for businesses generated by artificial intelligence – I believe AI policy is at a crucial point where it must address how intellectual property is being invisibly repurposed as new content through the increasing accessibility of AI image generation.
What do I hope to achieve here?
During my time at EFA, I hope to deepen my understanding on how digital rights strengthen core democratic principles, and how values such as privacy, democratic participation, and freedom of expression can be protected in the digital sphere.
I am excited to gain insight into how these complex and novel issues can be translated into policy recommendations and public engagement, especially in Australia, a place currently wrestling with policy debates on AI governance, online safety, and digital regulation. I am particularly interested in comparing these approaches with those I have observed in Europe and understanding how different democratic systems respond to shared technological challenges.
All in all, I look forward to an exciting month of getting to know Melbourne whilst volunteering for EFA!