Digital rights activists take aim at EU data laws
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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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Data protection officials from 27 European countries have warned Google it is storing data on people&#39;s searches for too long-- but Europe&#39;s top privacy guardian, the European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx, believes Google&#39;s efforts to respect the privacy of European citizens in its Internet search software &quot;is not just window dressing.&quot;
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Data logging? Nein danke Privacy activists have filed a constitutional complaint against Germany's data retention laws.â¦
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Information commissioner lectures public bodies to take digital privacy 'far more seriously'
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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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Internet user profiling could help repressive regimes identify dissidents, group warns.
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BPI: You don't have to show us any stinkin' personal data Analysis Internet users in the UK can safely ignore this week's EU Courts of Justice ruling on data protection for filesharing: it's already irrelevant.â¦
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Dear Sir, you personal data has been made public... The European Commission has published proposals for a law change that would force telecoms firms to notify regulators and customers of all breaches of their data security.â¦
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Throughout the European Union, governments are grappling with how to guard against terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, Indian IT services companies have beefed up efforts to protect data.
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Software on the Seine, anyone? Backup in Budapest? VTL from Vienna? And why not. Europeans have far more experience when it comes to dealing with data regulatory issues than we do.
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LONDON, Oct 16  (IPS) - An information rights activist has warned against  the growing power of the  "landlords" of cyberspace.
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European Commission calls upon member states to tackle "digital illiteracy" and shortfall in qualified tech staff.
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Will downloaders go to jail? The European Parliament's committee for legal affairs meets today to vote on proposals for criminal penalties to be imposed on those who infringe intellectual property (IP) rights.â¦
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Proposed legislation in some European nations has been accused of expanding too far beyond an EU directive and threatening citizens' privacy.
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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¦
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Google says 'there's no black and white answer' The European Union moved closer to labelling Internet Protocol addresses as personal information yesterday at a public hearing of the Civil Liberties Committee.â¦
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A ruling in Belgium that makes an ISP in that country responsible for blocking illegal file-sharing on its network could set a precedent for other countries in the European Union.