Europe mulls anti-ID theft law
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But doesn't expect it to be useful The European Commission is considering new legislation against identity theft. The proposal is contained in a just-published policy on EU-wide plans to fight cybercrime.â¦
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A proposed law would require companies to keep detailed data about peopleâs Internet and phone use that goes beyond a European Union directive.
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The Department of Homeland Security is continuing to finish work on the controversial Real ID law despite growing criticism from states and privacy advocates
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Solving the 'interoperability puzzle' The European Commission is considering the feasibility of an interoperable electronic identity (eID) system across Europe.â¦
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European Commission to propose foreign travelers into and out of Europe, including U.S. citizens, should be fingerprinted.
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Some European countries are proposing outlawing the use of fake information to open e-mail accounts or set up Web sites, a move intended to help terror investigations but which could face resistance on a privacy-conscious continent.
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The Identity Cards Bill, published today, seeks to create by 2010 a system of ID cards with embedded chips that carry personal information and biometric identifiers.
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Proposals to fingerprint children aged 11 to 15 as part of new passport and ID card plans are being considered.
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Virginia legislators are weighing a plan to add biometric data and radio signal emitting chips to licenses to prevent identity theft and thwart terrorists. Critics say the plan could compromise privacy and allow new varieties of fraud to flourish. By Mark Baard.
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See you in court An Irish lobby group aims to dismantle Europe's laws forcing telecoms firms to retain phone and internet data on citizens. The group, Digital Rights Ireland, is taking a case both against the Irish Government and the European Directive on data retention.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - The European Parliament has delayed a vote on how to react to the U.S.' growing appetite for personal information about European citizens, in order to intensify its opposition. The delay follows a debate Wednesday evening in which the two other European Union lawmaking institutions both hardened their positions on the sensitive issue. The groups are drawing up a strategy for how toÂ renegotiate an agreement, over which they have been divided, with the U.S. over theÂ transfer of European air passenger data. The Parliament opposed the original agreement reached in 2004 to share the data -- 34 facts about every European entering or transiting through America by air, including credit card details and information about how and where a plane ticket was purchased. Even though the European Commission -- the E.U.'s executive branch -- and national governments in the 27 E.U. countries support strict European data protection laws, they negotiated an exemption from the rules in order to allow the U.S. to better protect itself from potential terrorist attacks. The European Parliament took the Commission and the Council of Ministers to the European Court of Justice over the passenger data agreement and forced a re-drafting of the law late last year. This agreement expires at the end of July and the E.U. will soon have to renegotiate the deal. While the Parliament is unlikely now to call for the complete scrapping of the agreement, it may well demand a shorter list of categories of data to be handed over. It may also demand that only U.S. immigration officials be granted access to the information. In a debate at the European Parliament Wednesday, Germanyâs deputy foreign minister, Guenther Gloser warned that negotiations with the U.S. will be âtortuous.â Germany holds the six-month rotating presidency of the 27-nation bloc. The European commissioner in charge of justice and home affairs issues, Franco Frattini told Parliamentarians that he has demanded an explanation from his counterparts in Washington D.C. about an apparent misuse of Europeansâ data that flouts both the original passenger rights' agreement as well as its replacement agreed last year. Frattini's concerns focus on the U.S. Automated Targeting System, which has been assessing millions of people since 2002. Some members of the U.S. Congress and privacy advocates believe the program is even illegal under the more lax U.S. data protection laws. "The right to privacy for me is nonnegotiable. It has to be respected," Frattini told the parliamentarians. Frattini's and Gloserâs speeches took many members of the Parliament by surprise, according to one Parliament official actively involved in civil liberties issues. "The MEPs were due to vote on an agreed position regarding the new round of negotiations with the U.S. today, but they have agreed to postpone the vote until the next plenary session in Strasbourg," she said, asking not to be named. The next plenary session is Feb. 12-15. "There is a mixture of joy and skepticism among the parliamentarians after hearing the strong language expressed in defense of Europeans rights to privacy," she said. "It would seem that the Commission and the Council of Ministers are both coming around to the Parliament's way of thinking on this urgent issue." The text is likely to take an even stronger line as a result of the delay, she said. The U.S. has threatened to fine airlines that fail to hand over the records, and to strip them of their landing rights in the U.S. Without any agreement, the airlines will be put in a difficult position: punished if they don't hand over the information, or sued for breaching European data protection laws if they do.
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PARIS, Oct. 6 -- European officials agreed Friday to grant more U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies easier access to detailed personal data on all transatlantic air passengers, despite concerns over individual privacy and fears that the information could be misused.
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Data breaches contribute less to ID theft and fraud that most people think, according to a recent survey by Javelin Strategy & Research. Losing your checkbook or wallet is more likely to put you at risk.
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Â· New law heralds world's biggest biometric systemÂ· Police to share information on visa applicants
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The European Commission unveiled on  Wednesday a plan to fingerprint all foreigners visiting  Europe's 24-nation border-free area, as part of a series of  border-security proposals.
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(InfoWorld) - Europeans who visit the U.S. will be required to fill out an online questionnaire two days before they enter the country under a proposal being studied by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The department has been discussing the idea internally for about a month, said Hugo Teufel III, chief privacy officer for the DHS, in a meeting with journalists in Paris on Thursday. He could not say when the registration system might be introduced. The proposal will likely increase tensions between the U.S. and Europe at a time when the two sides are already in heated debate over U.S. demands for data about air passengers flying from Europe to the U.S. The U.S. says it needs access to more data to prevent suspected terrorists from entering the country, while European regulators counter that the demands are excessive and worry how the data will be used. The online registration would complement the Automated Targeting System, or ATS, a program disclosed by the DHS in November that assigns a "risk assessment" to people entering and leaving the U.S., to determine the likelihood that they pose a security threat. The registration system would likely require approval by the U.S. Congress before it could be introduced, Teufel said. "It's a fairly new initiative in that we've been discussing it internally for about a month," he added. He offered few other details Thursday, but Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff discussed the proposal earlier this week in an interview with the German newspaper Der Spiegel. Chertoff said the U.S. wanted to "elevate the security level generally" for foreign visitors, particularly in light of its looser visa requirements for some countries. The online registration "would be similar to what they do in Australia where visa waiver travelers would register online in advance, and they would, therefore, know before they arrive in the United States whether there was going to be a problem with their being admitted," Chertoff told the newspaper. "The registration would have a shelf life of some years. It wouldn't be something you do every trip, you would do it periodically," he added. The DHS will prepare a "privacy impact assessment" on the registration plan, Teufel said Thursday. Such assessments cover issues like how data is used, who can access it and for how long it will be retained. Teufel suggested that the assessment report would be made available to the public, although U.S. law makes exceptions for reports about systems used by the intelligence community, he said. Teufel was appointed by Chertoff in July last year and is responsible for the DHS's privacy policies.
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Germany will store digital fingerprints in addition to digital photos in passports as one of several biometric security measures.