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Dangerous myths peddled about data subject access rights
Now that the date on which the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) becomes enforceable is rapidly approaching, the European Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) are in the process of clarifying what their shared positions will be on various topics, including profiling. This is done through stakeholder consultation meetings.
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Data mining for profit and election result – how predictable are we?
Did Donald Trump become president because he hired the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, which uses profiling and micro-targeting in political elections? Some say yes, many say no. But what we know is that we are subjected to extensive personalised commercial and political messaging on the basis of data, including metadata, collected and used without […]
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AVMS Directive – censorship by coercive comedy confusion
On 25 April 2017, the European Parliament Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) will vote on its report on the European Commission’s proposal on Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). To understand just how confused the proposal is, it is worth understanding its history. In 1989, the EU adopted the “Television without Frontiers” Directive, to regulate cross-border […]
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RightsCon session on cross-border access to e-evidence – key interventions
European Digital Rights organised a session at the RightsCon conference in Brussels on 31 March 2017, in order to build awareness among stakeholders about the multiple international developments on law enforcement access to electronic evidence. The bulk of the discussions focussed on a possible new protocol to the Cybercrime (Budapest) Convention of the Council of […]
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The European Parliament adopts another resolution critical of the Privacy Shield
On 6 April 2017, the European Parliament (EP) voted a motion for a resolution on the adequacy of the protection afforded by the EU-US Privacy Shield. The scheme gives the United States a unique arrangement for the transfer of personal data from the European Union to the United States. The Privacy Shield replaced the Safe […]
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ENDitorial: Transparency and law-making on EU copyright – mutually exclusive?
Transparency should be a core principle for an open democracy. According to the European Union (EU) founding treaties, in order to have a democratic decision-making process, the EU institutions “shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil society”. However, by following the legislative process on the copyright directive, one can […]
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Denmark: Weakening the oversight of intelligence services
A draft law to amend the data protection provisions of the law on the oversight of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) was submitted for public consultation in September 2016. In their consultation responses, several NGOs including EDRi member IT-Pol Denmark, as well as the Danish Intelligence Oversight Board (TET) criticised the proposal. The […]
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What to do with the online platforms – the academics point of view
The rise of “platform economy” with rapid growth of online intermediary platforms, such as Airbnb, Uber, Amazon Marketplace, and also dating, gaming and other services is bringing new challenges not only for existing business models, but also for European legislation. In a meeting of Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) Committee Working Group on the […]
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Social media companies launch upload filter to combat “terrorism and extremism”
A database set up jointly by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube aims to identify “terrorist and radicalising” content automatically and to remove it from these platforms.
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UK government attacks encryption … again
In the aftermath of the attack in London in March 2017, the UK government has, again, indicated that it wants to force companies to weaken encryption. The government wants to be able to access messages sent via services that use end-to-end encryption. The Home Secretary Amber Rudd stated on BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show that it […]
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Reckless social media law threatens freedom of expression in Germany
At the end of March 2017, with Federal elections on the horizon, the German Justice Minister Heiko Maas proposed a law on ill-defined “social networks”. Minister Maas has proposed the law which places a variety of obligations on the companies, in the apparent hope that this will lead profit-motivated companies to take over private censorship […]
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EDRi @RightsCon 2017 – You cannot miss us!
EDRi member Access Now is bringing the sixth edition of RightsCon, the world’s leading digital rights event, to Brussels. We are happy to announce that EDRi’s presence at the conference will be particularly strong this year – our members will be organising a record number of sessions, and our team will participate in an impressive […]
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