Blogs

European Privacy & Human Rights 2010

By EDRi · February 23, 2011

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: [Europäischer Datenschutz & Menschenrechte 2010 | http://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_9.4_European_Privacy_Human%20_Rights_2010]

On Data Protection Day, 28 January 2011, Privacy International, the Center
for Media and Communication Studies of the Central European University and
the Electronic Privacy Information Center, released the European Privacy &
Human Rights 2010 (EPHR) report. The survey reviews the landscape of
national privacy and data protection laws and regulations, in addition to
other laws, cases and recent developments, such as European NGOs’ advocacy
activities, that have had an impact on privacy in Europe in the last two
years. The research field covers jurisdictions of all 27 EU Member States,
two EFTA countries (Norway and Switzerland), three EU accession candidate
states (Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey), and the EU itself as a jurisdiction.

Apart from the country-by-country analysis in 33 reports, the survey also
provides a comparative legal and policy analysis of major privacy topics and
a section on key developments country by country. A privacy ranking offers
a bird’s-eye view of all major developments, and summarizes them
by grading the state of privacy in each state, from the ones which
“consistently uphold human rights standards” (best grade) to the ones where
“endemic surveillance” prevails (lowest grade), going through the states
that have “adequate safeguards against abuse” (satisfactory mark), present a
“systemic failure to uphold safeguards” (insufficient mark), or show signs
of “extensive surveillance” (very poor grade). Key findings then list
countries on a grading scale, such as the “good” ones (“European democracies
(…) in good health”, with a “majority of countries having constitutional
protections”) or the ones where “heroic” policy advocacy, campaigns or
protests that took place that slowed down or prevented privacy intrusions or
government surveillance.

A special section in the report outlines European NGOs’ advocacy work in
each country. Several of EDRi’s NGO members have directly contributed to
the success of those advocacy efforts in their respective countries.
Each country report is available in English and translated into the
country’s official language(s). Another section provides an extensive list
of privacy resources, country by country.

The EPHR report builds upon the legacy of EPIC & Privacy International’s
Privacy & Human Rights survey, in which more than 300 privacy experts from
all over the world have already participated for over a decade, making
this survey one of the world’s most comprehensive report on privacy and
data protection.

The “EPHR 2010” report is part of a broader project that comprises, apart
from the publication of the report itself, two other action areas that will
be fully developed over the next six months: the dissemination of the report
on various online platforms, in particular mobile phones, so that people
around Europe can learn, in their own national language, about privacy
developments in their country; but also the development of awareness-raising
campaigns, including three “games” that teach people how to decode web
access logs and IP addresses and tie them to a unique individual, or figure
out which countries’ servers their e-mails may have gone through, and may
possibly have been intercepted.

In addition to the research and production team, made up of people from the
Center for Media and Communication Studies at the Central European
University and Privacy International, more than 90 privacy and data
protection experts (privacy advocates, academics, lawyers and policy
experts) from 32 countries all over Europe, contributed with updates from
their respective countires. The European Commission funded the EPHR project
through its “Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Program (2007-2013)”.

The European Privacy & Human Rights 2010 report
https://www.privacyinternational.org/ephr/

The introductory video
https://www.privacyinternational.org/data/

The “EPHR” project
http://www.cmcs.ceu.hu/research/privacy-and-freedoms

Short presentation of the survey (31.01.2011)
http://blog.cedriclaurant.org/2011/01/31/european_privacy_and_human_rights/

(Contribution by Cedric Laurant – observer at EDRi)