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Deutsch: Tausende Österreicher wehren sich gegen die Vorratsdatenspeicherung

Two parallel initiatives by the Austrian AK Vorrat (working group data retention) are impressively supported by the general public. On the one hand, the citizens initiative for the abolishment of the EU data retention directive and the evaluation of national anti-terror legislation has already been signed by more than 100 000 citizens.

Ruling

Bonnier Audio took the Swedish Internet service provider (ISP), Perfect Telecommunication, to court to obtain a court order to disclose the identities of alleged infringers of their intellectual property (IP) rights. As a result, the Swedish High Court asked the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) if, assuming such a measure was proportionate, a Member State could introduce legislation which would require telecommunications data to be made available for such purposes. More specifically, would such a national measure be in breach of the Data Retention Directive?

EDRi-member Panoptykon Foundation (Poland) published last week the latest data received from the Office of Electronic Communications (UKE). During 2011, the courts, public prosecutor's office, the police and other authorities used data concerning Polish citizens' electronic communication exactly 1 856 888 times.

It is almost half a million times more than in 2010 and 800 000 times more than in 2009. Back then, the Polish public was enraged by the news of million billings that positioned Poland at the very top of the list of European countries interfering with the privacy of its citizens. In 2010 the number of requests sent to various service providers increased by one third and amounted to 1 382 521.

The Communication Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP) proposed by UK coalition, meant to extend the police’s access to individuals' email and social media traffic data, is facing strong criticism from the opposition and civil liberties campaigners.

CCDP is likely to be part of Queen's speech on 9 May and relies on ISPs to gather the information and allow government intelligence operatives to scrutinise it.

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Deutsch: ENDitorial: Mitgliedsstaaten stürzen Kommissarin Malmström in Sachen...

Soon after the current college of Commissioners took office in 2009, all 27 Members travelled to Luxemburg to take a solemn oath to respect the Charter of Fundamental Rights in all of their duties. One key element of the Charter is that any restriction on fundamental rights must be "necessary and genuinely" achieve objectives of general interest or the defence of rights and freedoms of others.

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Deutsch: Die Datenschutzwoche 2012: Datenschutz-Konferenz und BarCamp

The week from 22 to 26 January 2012 was rather busy for everyone involved in European data protection issues.

First of all, the European Commission has launched its proposals for revision of the data protection framework. In the same week, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) published a survey on the performance of all 58 EU bodies in key areas and showed that EU institutions have different levels of data protection compliance.

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Deutsch: Rumänien: Senat lehnt neues Gesetz zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung ab

Following the pressure of the European Commission to the Romanian authorities to implement the data retention directive and despite the decision of the Constitutional Court from 2009 against the data retention law, a new draft law has emerged, but it was rejected by the Senate at the end of 2011.

The Romanian Ministry of Communications and Information Society (MCSI) has tried to have the new draft promoted as a Government proposal, but has failed to do so for unclear reasons.

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Deutsch: Kommission bestätigt Widerrechtlichkeit der Vorratsdatenspeicherung

The EDRi-member Quintessenz - Austria has published a leak of an internal paper from the Commission intended to inform DAPIX, the Council's working party on information exchange and data protection, of the results of the Commission's consultation in April 2011 on the reform of the Data Retention Directive (DRD). It raises a number of issues with the Directive that the Commission wishes to tackle in order to cast it in a better light.