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Smart Borders package: Unproportionate & unnecessary data collection
“The proposal is fear-driven and fear-triggering at the same time, placing emphasis on a putative need to protect the EU from those coming from outside.” (Extract from EDRi’s response to the consultation) In an attempt to overcome the failed proposal from 2013 on the Smart Borders package, the European Commission launched a consultation to prepare […]
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ENDitorial: The EU’s data protection reform – a lost opportunity?
“Someone who knows things about us has some measure of control over us, and someone who knows everything about us has a lot of control over us. Surveillance facilitates control.” – Bruce Schneier, cryptographer and security expert When the European Union talks about modernising EU rules on data protection in the digital age, the most […]
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ENDitorial: A system you never heard of undermined net neutrality
Trialogues. You may never have heard of them but they’re the single biggest threat to the credibility of European Parliament’s claim to be a democratic institution. Net neutrality explains why. In September 2013, the European Commission produced its half-baked anti-net neutrality/spectrum/user-rights/roaming proposal. The European Commission believed that the “end of roaming” was such an attractive […]
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Can the US be a “safe harbor” for travel surveillance?
This article is a shortened version of an analysis originally published on http://papersplease.org/wp/2015/10/29/can-the-us-be-a-safe-harbor-for-travel-surveillance At its plenary session on 29 October in Strasbourg, the European Parliament adopted a “Resolution on the electronic mass surveillance of European Union citizens”. As part of the Resolution, the European Parliament, “[c]alls on the EU Member States to drop any criminal […]
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Austrian BBA awarded to the new intelligence services act
On 25 October, Austrian EDRi member q/uintessenz organised the annual Big Brother Awards Gala. It was held in Vienna at the Rabenhof Theatre, with over 300 people attending to “honour” the biggest privacy invaders of this year. Organised annually since 1999, this was the 17th time the Gala was held. It was broadcast via national […]
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Minister of Interior and National Police Force win Dutch BBA 2015
Amsterdam hosted four big privacy conferences in October 2015: the Amsterdam Privacy Conference and the Privacy Law Scholars Conference, both for academia, the International Privacy Conference for regulators, and the Dutch Big Brother Awards, organised by EDRi member Bits of Freedom on 29 October in Stadsschouwburg. The winner of the Big Brother Audience Award is […]
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Fundamental Rights are Fundamental
Statement of Leading Digital Rights and Consumer NGOs 37th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners Amsterdam, The Netherlands We join together this week in Amsterdam, celebrating the success of Max Schrems in the case before the European Court of Justice concerning Safe Harbor. NGO leaders around the world have expressed support for Max’s […]
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Net neutrality: The European Parliament has decided not to decide
The European Parliament today voted for a Regulation on a Single Market for Electronic Communications. The EU institutions will claim that this will protect net neutrality. This is sadly not true.
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Turkey: New attempts to limit online access and freedom of speech
The Turkish government has been heavily critised for implementing censorship on the Internet and other media. Currently, over 100 000 websites are officially blocked in the country. Additionally, popular websites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have been frequently blocked with or without a court order. Other than officially blocking websites, Turkish Internet Service Providers […]
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EP Committee adopts short-sighted anti-”radicalisation” report
On 19 October 2015, after months of discussion, the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) adopted an extremely incoherent and short-sighted anti-“radicalisation” report. The text is very-wide ranging, covering everything from prisons and schools to the Internet. Regarding the measures related to the Internet, there is a complete lack of […]
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FCForum will bring together free culture & digital rights activists
On 30-31 October, the Free Culture Forum (FCForum), an international event, will take place in Barcelona. It will be hosted by the Spanish EDRi observer Xnet, and aims to build and coordinate a common action agenda for issues surrounding free/libre culture and access to knowledge, defence of a free/libre and neutral Internet, democracy and fight against […]
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FNF15: Privacy advocates’ summit in Brussels
Civil society has a big role in keeping governments on the right track. This is not only true at the national level, but also important with regard to policy-making in the EU. To enable civil society to do so, the annual Freedom not Fear (FNF) conference on 16-19 October in Brussels gathered participants from over […]
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