Personal data: a comic book for European young adults
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: [Personenbezogene Daten: Ein Comicheft für junge Europäer | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1830]
Information and communication technologies (telephone, Internet, emails,
blogs and social networks) make daily life and relationships with our
relatives, friends or even strangers easier. Young people and young adults
make a particularly intense use of them. However, unless we are careful,
they can lead us to hand over excessive amounts of our personal data,
facilitating surveillance of our private lives. Protection of personal data
is crucial for the respect for privacy. The European Union has established a
legislative and regulatory framework which aims at ensuring the protection
of citizens’ personal data as one of their fundamental rights. What is the
reality in practice and how can we protect ourselves on a daily basis?
The European project “Sensitization and information of young European
citizens on the protection of their personal data” takes stock of the
situation in nine EU countries (Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany,
Greece, Netherlands, Romania, Spain and United Kingdom) and on the European
legislation. This 18-month project started in January 2009 and is funded by
the “Fundamental Rights and Citizenship” programme of the European
Commission. It is coordinated by the French League of Human Rights (LDH), in
partnership with the European Association for the Defense of Human Rights
(AEDH), European Digital Rights (EDRi), the Czech association Iuridicum
Remedium (IuRe) and the Spanish association Comunicació per a la Cooperació
(Pangea). The project aims at raising citizens’ awareness on the issue of
privacy protection. Country reports, a comparative analysis of the various
situations and an inventory of the legislation and practices in the EU are
being produced for that purpose. They will come with recommendations to
public authorities.
As for now, the project publicly releases a comic book “Under
surveillance “it produced as an information and awareness tool for young
adults.
Synopsis: In an unspecified European city, a group of young people
works, studies, travels, publishes on forums and blogs, exchanges on social
networks and meets at concerts… A “difficult” situation in the life of a
young photo-journalist and his friends’ mobilization to help him out of this
situation illustrate the breaches of personal data protection facilitated by
the use of new technologies. The comic book underlines the consequences but
also possible remedies. A glossary and links to useful websites come with
the comic book.
The comic book “Under surveillance” is available in Catalan, Czech, English
and French. Online versions are made available on the project partners’
websites. 20,000 hard copies are available in each language and are
disseminated for free. AEDH and EDRI are disseminating the English versions.
We invite organisations interested in contributing to this dissemination to
get in touch with AEDH and EDRI. Those interested in the production of
versions in other European languages must contact LDH, the project
coordinator.
Contacts:
EDRi (edrigram at edri dot org)
AEDH (aedh at aedh dot eu)
LDH (ldh at ldh-france dot org)
Press release: Personal data: a comic book to raise awareness among European young adults (7.04.2010)
http://www.edri.org/files/Press-release-edri-comic-book-privacy-under-surveillance.pdf
Données personnelles : une bande dessinée à destination des jeunes adultes européens pour prendre conscience, s’informer et se protéger au quotidien (only in French, 7.04.2010)
http://www.edri.org/files/Communique-bande-dessinee-vie-privee-surveillance.pdf
Comic Book “Under Surveillance”
http://www.edri.org/files/Comic-Book-Under-surveillance-En.pdf
http://www.edri.org/files/Comic-Book-Cover-Under-surveillance-En.pdf
LDH France
http://www.ldh-france.org
EDRi
AEDH
http://www.aedh.eu
IURE
http://www.iure.org
Pangea
http://www.pangea.org