Europe votes to restrict police data sharing
301498
Data protection reinstated The European Parliament voted on Monday night to reinstate the principles of data protection in legislation that would allow police across Europe to routinely share data about their activities.â¦
42485
An anti-terror deal struck between the United States and the European Union gives U.S. law enforcement access to passenger data on U.S.-bound flights. The agreement was deadlocked for months as the EU held out for privacy rights.
734957
Europe&#39;s top data protection officials are working to clarify a grey area of Internet law: the legal status of an IP address.
310154
Co-operation needs human touch The Home Affairs Select Committee has advised government to put its weight behind neglected European efforts to hold the rapidly emerging system of police databases answerable to human rights legislation.â¦
533088
Critics ofÂ last week's agreementÂ allowing European passengers' personal data to be shared with U.S. authorities have just under a month to reshape the accord before it comes into force, said Stavros Lambrinidis, vice president of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee Monday.
302577
Law takes effect creating comprehensive pool of personal data in antiterrorist effort.
593681
PNR and Swift finally put to bed - but still restless The US has capitulated to EU demands that its use of European data in counter-terrorism operations should be subject to foreign scrutiny.â¦
117816
Europeans enjoy greater privacy rights than U.S. citizens under Homeland Security's Automated Targeting System. In 27B Stroke 6.
10596
Caring, sharing police databases The European Parliament has fashioned a wreath of caveats it hopes will brighten up legislative measures designed to raise biometric borders and erect a network of biometric controls for police across the continent.â¦
445311
The European Union&#039;s top court scrapped a controversial EU decision approving the transfer of personal data about European air passengers to US authorities.
251253
(InfoWorld) - Executives from the financial data transfer company Swift and the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) faced tough questions in a European Parliament committee meeting Wednesday, about the illegal sharing of private data with U.S. authorities. ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet denied that the bank should have stepped in to prevent the breach of European data protection laws, saying that the bank could only advise the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication SCRL (Swift). "We have no judicial competence in the field of data protection," he said. Swift's Chief Financial Officer Francis van Bever explained that the company has two information storage facilities, one in the U.S. and the other in Holland. Each facility holds identical data: they serve as back-ups for each other in case one were to crash. "Each facility is subject to local laws," Van Bever said. "We were obliged to respond to the subpoena from the U.S. authorities." European law is unclear, he said, adding that after getting external legal advice in Belgium, Swift concluded that transferring the data to the U.S. authorities would be legal. "We didn't check with local data protection authorities because we thought what we were doing was legal," he said. U.S. agencies ordered Swift to share millions of pieces of information about people and companies from around the world in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The information was deemed essential in tracing the financing of terrorism, and Swift complied with the order. However, European data protection laws forbid transfers of European citizens' personal data outside the E.U. if the country receiving the data has aÂ weaker data protection regimeÂ than Europe's. The U.S. is considered such a country under European laws. In June the New York Times revealed that Swift has been sharing the data with U.S. authorities for years, sparking investigations in Europe into how the European laws could so easily have been breached. Last week, Belgium's privacy commission concluded a two-month investigation, accusing Swift of breaking Belgian and Europe-wide data protection laws. However, it stopped short of proposing fines for the company, which it agreed was caught between conflicting legal requirements on each side of the Atlantic. Many European parliamentarians drew a parallel between the Swift case and the ongoing attempts to strike a data sharing agreement that would allow the U.S. authorities access to personal data about passengers flying to the U.S.. They were unimpressed by what more than one member of the European parliament referred to as "buck-passing" when it came to handing out responsibility for the data protection breach. Trichet tried to move the debate beyond casting blame by suggesting ways of avoiding similar problems in future. "This problem is ongoing," he said. "The system we have in place is imperfect. It is very important to clarify the situation and work out what to do about such data transfers across the Atlantic." He added that any agreement between the E.U. and the U.S. should then form the basis for a global solution, because the problem is worldwide. "We need a global legal framework for situations like this," Trichet said. Swift's van Bever agreed. "We would welcome such clarification," he said, adding that the double taxation treaty could be a role model. The treaty is signed by many countries around the world and is designed to prevent people being taxed twice on the same income by different tax authorities.
231461
German police on Tuesday attacked a  court ruling banning them from secretly monitoring computers,  saying electronic searches were essential to hunting down  terrorism suspects.
406761
A ruling from the European Court of Justice will keep ISPs from being required to reveal subscriber data for use in civil cases. But individual nations, the ruling indicated, can decide to do otherwise.
246258
(InfoWorld) - For months, German Interior Minister Wolfgang SchÃ¤uble has been lobbying intensively forÂ tough security measures to fight terrorismÂ and cybercrime. Now he's putting his words into action. Law enforcement officials in Germany and Austria are now among the first to have electronic access to each other's fingerprint databases, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior said Monday. Since 2006, the two countries have shared their DNA databases as one of several measures agreed by some European Union nations under the Treaty of PrÃ¼m in 2005. The treaty, which has meanwhile been signed by several E.U. member states, gives police and other security agencies in different countries unprecedentedÂ access to a range of individuals' personal data. During its E.U. presidency, Germany is trying to muster enough support to turn the Treaty of PrÃ¼m into E.U. law. Support for tough security measures has grown in Germany and other E.U. member states that worry about their national security being increasingly threatened by international terrorism, organized crime and, increasingly, cybercrime. Recently, the Baltic nation ofÂ Estonia suffered several weeks of DDOSÂ (distributed denial-of-service) attacks against government and private-sector Web sites. That DDOS attack sent a warning signal to governments across Europe. On Monday at an IT security conference hosted by the German Interior Ministry, SchÃ¤uble referred to information technology and communications infrastructures as "the nerve strands of society" and called on everyone -- governments, businesses and consumers -- to give IT security a top priority. Protecting critical infrastructure, including communication and energy grids, from cyberattacks is a key area of focus during the two-day conference. SchÃ¤uble is also determined to give the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) greater power to monitor terrorists and criminals online by allowing the agency to peek inside their computers. In an interview with the Berliner Zeitung published on Saturday, the minister said he aims to complete draft legislation over the next few weeks to allow the BKA to hack into the PCs of suspected criminals. This year Germany's High Court handed down a landmark decisionÂ banning police from installing spywareÂ on computers of suspected criminals without their knowledge. The High Court in Karlsruhe argued that searching computers is similar to searching homes, a practice in Germany that requires police to follow certain procedures, such as obtaining a search warrant and informing suspected offenders of a search. The judges also argued that hacking computers by the police is not permitted under Germany's strict phone-tapping laws and that legislation would be needed to enable covert surveillance. In the interview, SchÃ¤uble said he would amend Germany's constitutional law to allow online surveillance if the country's leading courts required such an amendment. In February, Germany passed a law allowing security officials to create the largest and most comprehensive pool of personal data ever amassed in the country. The databases of nearly 40 different agencies, including BKA and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), are now linked to allow authorities to run searches on suspected individuals and retrieve information within minutes. Â
19195
The European Parliament on Wednesday approved a controversial report accusing Britain, Germany, Italy and other European nations of turning a blind eye to CIA flights transporting terrorism suspects to secret prisons in an apparent breach of EU human rights standards.
397142
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.
255049
European Union and U.S. negotiators reached a deal on the sharing of trans-Atlantic air passenger data used in anti-terror investigations, diplomats said Friday.