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Chaos Communication Congress 2015
The Chaos Communication Congress, which is the world’s longest-running annual hacker conference, took place from 27 to 30 December 2015. It gathered 12,000 participants from around the globe and featured more than 160 superb talks in the areas of hacking, science, arts, culture, ethics, society and politics. We have collected all must-see digital rights sessions […]
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India: Free Basics violates principles of a neutral Internet
India is Facebook’s second largest market after the US, and the social media giant has rolled out Free Basics, a new, “free” service which they claim has the ability to connect millions of people who have never connected to the Internet. In doing so, it is showcasing a new, aggressive corporate strategy. Both regulators and […]
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EDRi’s submission to the “Platforms consultation”
EDRi submitted its response to the European Commission consultation on platforms, online intermediaries, data, cloud computing and the collaborative economy on the 24 December 2015. The consultation covered a very broad range of different online services such as AirBnB, eBay, Netflix, Facebook, YouTube and others, which were labeled under the dubious denomination of “platform”. It […]
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Dutch government says no to weakening encryption
The Dutch government will, “at this time”, “not adopt restrictive legislative measures against the development, availability and use of encryption within the Netherlands.” This statement was posted by the Dutch government in a letter to the Dutch parliament on 4 January 2016. This is clearly position to be applauded. In the letter, the government recognises […]
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Open letter by global coalition to the world’s governments to demand security and encryption for all
This week, EDRi member “Access Now” launched the open letter and petition “Secure the Internet” to demand the protection of strong security and encryption tools for all. The letter addresses the leaders of the world’s governments and can be signed by individuals, organisations and companies:
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EDRi Awards 2015
For the second time and with great solemnity, EDRi presents the first ever second edition of its annual awards. 1. The “Humpty Dumpty Award” for the most silly “statistics” The award this year goes to French Home Affairs Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. He argued that 90% of radicalisation happens online – the source was a non-representative, […]
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Better Regulation Interinstitutional Agreement – we have concerns!
On 19 May 2015, European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans presented the Better Regulation package, wherein the Commission committed to “deliver better rules for better results” and to design EU policies and laws that achieve their objectives at minimum cost. One of the central points of this package is the “Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Regulation”. […]
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Santa Claus confirms NSA attack on naughty or nice database
A press conference was organised this morning on behalf of Mr Santa Claus. At the conference, a spokes–elf confirmed that there had been repeated attempts to hack the “naughty or nice (NON)” database. The NON-database was thought to be used by Mr Claus to keep records of young inhabitants of planet earth, in order to […]
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EU Data Protection Package – Lacking ambition but saving the basics
Statement of European Digital Rights (EDRi), Bits of Freedom, Digitale Gesellschaft e.V, Open Rights Group (ORG), Digital Rights Ireland and Privacy International following the vote of the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee on the Data Protection In January 2012, the European Commission, following extensive consultations, published a draft Regulation and a Directive to create a […]
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EU encourages cooperation between intelligence agencies
In the wake of the Paris attacks on 13 November 2015, the planning and implementation of measures taken in the name of fighting terrorism have been geared up on the EU level. After the publication of the Council of Europe report on foreign fighters, EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove stated on 7 December 2015 […]
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German Supreme Court rules in favour of “blocking” websites
In a decision from 26 November 2015 the German Supreme Court in Karlsruhe ruled in favour of the “blocking” of websites. The Court came to this decision after dealing with two separate cases concerning websites that contained links to unauthorized music downloads. Firstly, the German music rights group Gema asked the Internet Service Provider (ISP) […]
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Copyright reform: Restoring the facade of a decrepit building
“The Special Rapporteur also proposes to expand copyright exceptions and limitations to empower new creativity, enhance rewards to authors, increase educational opportunities, preserve space for non-commercial culture and promote inclusion and access to cultural works.” These recommendations come from the 2014 report on Copyright policy and the right to science and culture, from the UN […]
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