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Joint civil society statement on counter-terrorism and human rights
On 1 March 2016 13 civil society organisations, including EDRi, Amnesty International, Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations (FEMYSO), European Association for the Defense of Human Rights (AEDH) and Fair Trials published a joint civil society statement called „Counter-terrorism: The EU and its Member States must respect and protect human rights and the […]
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ENDitorial: Is “privacy” still relevant in a world of bastard data?
Should we still be talking about “privacy” in a world invaded by bastard data? We all knew what privacy was when it came to our data. We had our names and addresses, we had our store cards, we had our medical records, we had our insurance, we had our travel tickets, and the list goes […]
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UK’s mass surveillance law being rushed through legislative process
Last week, the UK government published the Investigatory Powers Bill, a new surveillance law that has been heavily criticised by privacy and free speech activists, the technology industry, lawyers and academics. A draft version of the Bill was published in November 2015 and scrutinised by three parliamentary committees. Between them, they made 123 recommendations for […]
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ENDitorial: PNR – political finger-pointing, no viable legislation
The EU Passenger Name Record Directive (or ‘PNR Directive’) would require the storage of travel data for airline passengers, ostensibly for law enforcement purposes. The specialist European Parliament committee responsible for the proposal rejected it in 2013 but adopted the proposal in 2015, following the terrorist attacks. The European Parliament recently decided not to schedule […]
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Respect My Net: online platform to report net neutrality violations
Today, we are re-launching RespectMyNet.eu – a joint initiative by civil rights groups including EDRi, La Quadrature du Net, Bits of Freedom, Access Now, Digitale Gesellschaft, IT-Pol, Initiative für Netzfreiheit, Nurpa, Open Rights Group, Xnet and several individual contributors. What is Respect My Net? Internet users should be in charge of their Internet connections. Instead, […]
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Press Release: Privacy Shield is the same unsafe harbour
Today, the European Commission published the “Privacy Shield” documents, which confirm that no meaningful reforms have been made and that none are planned. In November 2013, the European Commission adopted a Communication (pdf), in which it finally recognised the failure of the EU-US data transfer arrangement – the so-called “Safe Harbour” agreement. It then started a […]
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Data Protection Reform – Next stop: e-Privacy Directive
Did you think the data protection reform was finished? Think again. Once the agreement on the texts of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Directive for Law Enforcement Agencies (LEDP) was reached, the e-Privacy Directive took its place as the next piece of European Union (EU) law that will be reviewed. […]
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EU consultation on “Intellectual Property Rights” enforcement – Have your say!
Injunctions, internet blocking, blackmailing of individuals accused of unauthorised peer-to-peer filesharing – the so-called IPRED Directive has been very controversial. Now, the European Commission has launched a consultation on the Directive (whose full name is Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRED) in the online environment). The consultation is of great importance […]
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Possible Voters’ Registry Breach raise Privacy Issues in Macedonia
The return to democracy in Macedonia has been marred by the need to solve political and human rights issues. The right to privacy has been at the centre of the political crisis, and state institutions undergoing reform struggle to meet the standards set by the Law on Personal Data Protection. From February to May 2015, […]
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2015 Internet Report on Turkey released
The Alternative Informatics Association released its yearly report about the Internet in Turkey. Entitled “State of the Art Report of the Internet in Turkey – 2015,” the report is dedicated to the memory of Özgür Uçkan, who passed away in 2015. He was a founding member of the AIA and a devoted defender of rights […]
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Data Protection Lobbyotomy Part 1: Influencing the Dutch government
The new European data protection regulation is the most lobbied piece of legislation in Europe because the subject is very important and touches upon almost every aspect of our daily lives. Therefore, Bits of Freedom used the Dutch freedom of information act to ask the government to publicise all the lobby documents they received on […]
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Transparent consumers – a report by Bits of Freedom
Data brokers follow everything you do. What you buy, where you live, what you like and what this information says about you. They sell profiles based on this information to other companies. Starting last summer, Bits of Freedom conducted research with Dutch online newspaper De Correspondent as part of the ‘Quantified society’ programme. We looked […]
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