A week with EDRi Brussels
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Deutsch: [Eine Woche in EDRis Brüssel-Büro | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_10.20_Eine_Woche_in_EDRis_Bruessel-Buero?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20121024]
Now that EDRi has taken up home in its new office in Brussels, we
thought that it might be interesting to share a brief insight into what
a typical week looks like for us. The truth is that there is no typical
week, they are all wonderfully diverse. But just to give you a small
taste of what it can be like, here is how EDRi’s office agenda looked
like last week::
Monday: Following some feverish work over the weekend, the final touches
were put to our response to the consultation on net neutrality from the
European Commission. We also continued our work on our position paper on
the Directive on Collective Rights Management, which is at the start of
the legislative process in the European Parliament.
Tuesday: At lunchtime, our Executive Director took part in a lively
debate organised by the European Telecommunications Networks Operators
association (ETNO) and the GSM Association on the lack of consistency
between the proposed General Data Protection Regulation and the existing
E-Privacy Directive. The event was chaired by the MEP in charge of the
dossier in the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee of the
European Parliament (Italian EPP Member, Laura Comi). Other panellists
were the European Data Protection Supervisor, Peter Hustinx, Lars
Kindervater from Deutsche Telekom, Giuseppe Abbamonte from the European
Commission and Cristina Vela from ETNO.
On Tuesday evening, we also took part in an event at the Google office
on activism.
Wednesday: After months of cooperation with EDRi’s members, our
“protectmydata.eu” website dedicated to the review of the European Data
Protection framework was launched. The website is the product of months
of deliberation with members and observers, with a lot of the hard work
being done by our current and former interns, particularly Elena
Cantello and Owe Langfeldt.
Our attention then turned to providing a comprehensive analysis of Laura
Comi’s draft Data Protection Opinion, which was communicated to the
European Parliament and uploaded to our website today. Despite the
number of concerns we have with the draft, we have already had very
positive and constructive feedback from Ms Comi.
On Wednesday afternoon, we took part in a hearing organised by Bulgarian
Socialist MEP Ivalo Kalfin on the World Conference on International
Telecommunications (WCIT). The other participants were Amelia
Andersdotter (Sweden, Greens/EFA, Pirate Party), Eddy Hertog (European
Commission) and Luigi Gambardella (ETNO).
Thursday: In the morning, EDRi was one of the speakers at an event
organised by the Progressive Group of Socialists and Democrats in the
European Parliament entitled “Copyright: What is broken, how to mend
it.” The meeting was opened by Group President Hannes Swoboda and
Vice-President Sylvie Guillaume. Other speakers included the Institute
for Information Law from the University of Amsterdam, the Association of
European Performers’ Organisations, the European Digital Media
Association, Google, Deezer and the European Consumers’ Bureau.
On Thursday afternoon, we welcomed a delegation from the Dutch Police
Academy. This is the second year where EDRi has participated in the
European module of the further education programme of the academy. This
year, we discussed the review of the European data protection framework.
Friday: We participated in the European Commission’s (DG Connect)
half-day meeting on “cybersecurity from a societal perspective”. The
event brought together a small group of cyber-security experts from
around Europe to discuss European Commission funding under the
Horizon2020 research programme in the security field.
Through the week, we continued to receive applications for the post of
“senior office manager”. This is a post we need to fill in order to
allow our policy staff to focus on policy and to ensure that we can
build on our recent growth to defend citizens’ rights online even more
effectively.
EDRi’s new office contacts
EDRi website with comments on draft EU data protection legislation
http://protectmydata.eu
Net neutrality consultation response
https://edri.org/files/15102012-EDRi_response_NN_915674309211628912.pdf
Video of WCIT meeting
http://webcasts.barouhandpartners.com/wcit2012/another_regulatory_threat_to_the_internet
Presentation to the copyright event
https://edri.org/files/copyright_presentation_20121018.pdf
EDRi job vacancy – Office Manager
Deadline – 6 November 2012
http://jobs.euractiv.com/node/84224
(Contribution by Joe McNamee – EDRi)