EU seeks improved and consistent anti-terror measures
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The European Union began consultations aimed at improving detection of terrorist threats and introducing minimum security standards for all 25 member nations.
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European Union member states are keeping an eye on al-Qaeda and others potentially violent groups.
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The Dutch government sets out new measures to tackle extremists, the BBC's Geraldine Coughlan reports.
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Eyeing the agreement between the European Union and U.S. to share air-passenger data, the leader of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee pledged Tuesday to ensure that the deal was respectful of citizens' civil liberties.
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The European Union will dispatch an antiterrorism cooperation coordinator to Russia, said Bernard Bot, foreign minister of the Netherlands (chair of the EU), at a press conference in The Hague.
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The European Union has warned Morocco of a near certainty of terrorist attacks in the North African country and urged more security at Western embassies and tourism sites, a newspaper said on Monday.
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The European Commission proposes co-ordinated anti-terror measures targeting flight data and the web.
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A day after Holocaust commemorations across Europe, EU ministers said Friday they want to improve cooperation in the fight against extremism and anti-Semitism, including a ban on Nazi symbols.
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European Union governments are pushing through contentious new plans to retain data from telephone calls and e-mails for a minimum period of 12 months as part of new anti-terrorist and cybercrime proposals.
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Despite tensions in Britain over last weekend&#39;s failed bomb plots, the European Union seems in no hurry to appoint a new &quot;anti-terror&quot; chief and even appears to doubt whether one is needed.
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European countries are adopting tougher tactics to combat terrorism, but cooperation remains a challenge.
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Europe-wide coordination is needed to tackle cancer more effectively, a group of leading experts say.
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German politicians called for tougher anti-terrorism measures and immigration rules on Thursday after police said they had foiled a plot by Islamist militants to carry out massive bomb attacks.
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The Council of Europe on  Tuesday urged action over a report stating several European  countries have colluded with the CIA in a &quot;global spider&#039;s web&quot;  of secret flights of terrorist suspects.
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Regulators, ISPs, governments and the police have been called on by the European Commission to boost their antispam efforts.
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Why European counter-terror officials share U.S. concerns of an imminent threat
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(InfoWorld) - In the five years since terrorists attacked the U.S., Europe has been the target of extremist attacks, as has India. Bombings in London and Madrid and a recent failed attempt to blow up passenger trains in Germany have prompted a security clampdown never seen on the Continent. 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. The discovery of bombs in two German trains in July pushed up several security measures on the political agenda there. In September, the German government agreed to a new antiterror database, which will be available to authorities across the country and contain information such as a person's religion, travel history, telephone number and Internet data and bank details. It also approved increased use of video surveillance in public areas. These measures reflect a gigantic shift in thinking about privacy in Germany, which has been highly sensitive about data protection and surveillance because of its Nazi history and, more recently, the Stasi secret police in the former communist-run East Germany. The need to tighten security has created demand for new technologies to help authorities combat terrorism. The German subsidiary of IBM Corp., for instance, is working on new technology that will enable computers -- not human beings -- to filter information from the cameras monitoring public areas and other locations. Two German companies have developed a new biometric system for identifying airline passengers. Lufthansa Systems Group GmbH, the IT services arm of German airline Lufthansa AG, and high-security document producer Bundesdruckerei GmbH have developed the SecBoard system. The companies hope that the system, designed to conduct biometric checks on passengers prior to boarding an aircraft, will play a significant role in "trusted passenger" programs planned by the airline industry to increase security. In the U.K., the government is close to activating part of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) of 2000 that deals with encrypted data, one in a set of powers covering electronic surveillance and wiretapping. Authorities say the increased use of encryption is hampering their access to information on suspectsâ computers. RIPA would allow police to demand that a suspect decrypt data or face up to two years in jail. The encryption measure in RIPA has remained dormant since the techniques werenât widely used when the law was passed, according to the U.K. Home Office. Terrorist suspects already face up to five years for failing to decrypt data or provide an encryption key. But critics contend the law, which would apply in more than terrorism-related investigations, gives too much power to law enforcement and has the potential for abuse. High-ranking officials could demand the decryption of data without a court order, and the law binds to secrecy those served with a request. Experts say the law could increase the chance that, if seized, a companyâs mission-critical data could be mishandled. Elsewhere in Europe, heads of state met to discuss 57 antiterrorism measures two weeks after the March 11, 2004 bombings of four crowded commuter trains in Madrid. Among the measures discussed were the surveillance of telecommunications, Internet communications and air transportation. Civil liberties groups accused them of using the fight against terrorism as an excuse to increase police powers. E.U. legislation was slow to follow but, from September 2007, telecom carriers and ISPs (Internet service providers) must keep data on all mobile and fixed-line calls for between six months and two years. From March 2009, they must keep data on VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) calls, Internet connections and e-mail messages. Law enforcement officials will be able to demand the date and time of calls and messages, but not their content, and identifying information of the calling or sending and receiving parties. In India, the Sept. 11 attacks were not a watershed event because the country experienced frequent attacks by Kashmiri separatist groups demanding independence. Even before Sept. 11, some of the large Indian IT services companies had hardened data centers supporting their offshore businesses, said T. R. Madan Mohan, an analyst at Frost & Sullivan Inc. After Web sites of a ministry of the Indian government and an Indian atomic energy agency were hacked, and anti-India messages posted on these sites, Indian businesses showed increased concern about the need for intrusion detection and related security measures, he added. Infosys Technologies Ltd., Indiaâs second largest outsourcer, already had disaster recovery and business continuity plans in place before Sept. 11, said a spokeswoman for the company in Bangalore. However, those attacks brought the threat of terrorism into sharp focus for Indiaâs export-oriented industries, such as software outsourcing, because U.S. and European customers began worrying about the preparedness of their Indian suppliers for terrorist attacks. (Reported and written by John Blau in Dusseldorf, Germany; Peter Sayer in Paris; Jeremy Kirk in London; and John Ribeiro in Bangalore, India, and assembled by Grant Gross in Washington, D.C.)