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European Court overturns EU mass surveillance law
The European Court of Justice today ruled that the EU legislation on mass surveillance contravenes European law. The case was brought before the Court by EDRi member Digital Rights Ireland, together with the Austrian Working Group on Data Retention. After eight years, this affront to the fundamental rights of European citizens has finally been declared […]
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Child pornography and the net neutrality vote – what happened?
Immediately before the vote on the “net neutrality” vote (in the so-called Telecoms Single Market Regulation), there was a sudden storm around the issue of “child pornography”. What exactly was going on? Child pornography The 2011 EU Directive “on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography” took two years of […]
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European Parliament leads the world with open internet vote
The European Parliament today took a major step to protecting the open internet in Europe and to setting a global standard for online freedoms. Despite fierce lobbying from a coalition of the European Commission and former monopoly telecoms operators, Parliamentarians have supported the principle that the internet should remain open, competitive and democratic. “The European […]
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Commissioner Kroes’ letter to MEPs on net neutrality – now with subtitles
Letter to Members of the European Parliament, published by Neelie KROES on Tuesday, 01/04/2014 Open letter Translation If adopted, the European Commission’s Connected Continent regulation will lead to ending roaming charges by end 2015 on voice, text and data, ensure more coherent rules on spectrum allocation, set out the principles of net neutrality in the […]
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Launch of WePromise.eu: Helping voters to win the European Parliament elections
Press release – Brussels, April 1st. The We Promise campaign was formally launched today in the European Parliament. Parliamentarians from across the political divide joined forces with European Digital Rights to support the campaign. Paweł Zalewski MEP (EPP) opened the event with an introductory video message. He highlighted the importance of adapting copyright to the […]
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April 3rd – Decision day for net neutrality in Europe
The battle to preserve the open internet is reaching its final stage, with the big European Parliament vote taking place on April 3rd. The report adopted by the Industry Committee two weeks ago includes provisions undermining the principle of net neutrality, putting the open internet and freedom of speech at risk. The good news is that […]
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Turkey blocks Twitter
Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan appears to have ordered Twitter be blocked in the country, after wiretapped voice recordings and documents apparently showing evidence of corruption the prime minister’s inner circle were leaked via the social media platform. The ban entered into force shortly before midnight on 20 March 2014. Users trying to access the […]
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IFPI calls for increased censorship of alleged illegal sites
In its latest report music industry federation IFPI has called for more EU countries to adopt legislation that forces Internet Service Providers to block access to websites that index torrents. It also calls on search engines to voluntarily do more in suppressing the prominence of content which they believe to be distributed without authorisation. “Actions […]
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Russia accused for blocking news sites criticising Putin
Russia has blocked a number of major news sites including the online newspapers Grani and Ejednevni Jurnal, Garry Kasparov’s opposition information site, the blog of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, and the website of the liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy. A law allowing the blocking of internet sites on the order of prosecutors without a court […]
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UK privacy groups file complaint on medical data in Google Cloud
UK privacy groups Big Brother Watch, medConfidential and the EDRi member Foundation for Information Policy Research have filed a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK’s data protection authority. The complaint follows revelations that PA Consulting Group, a technology and innovation consultancy, uploaded a large quantity of data to Google’s cloud-based Big Data service […]
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Macedonia bans gambling, raises concern over Internet censorship
Macedonia’s government has announced plans to block access to foreign gambling sites in an effort to prevent an outflow of capital. The ban will occur at some point in March and follows a change in the Law of Games and Chance adopted on the 28 December 2013. Far from banning gambling outright – the Macedonian […]
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Extensive surveillance in the draft Finnish cyber intelligence law
Finnish government is in process of preparing of a new law on cyber intelligence. The draft by the Ministry of Defence working group preparing the law suggests giving the authorities such as Security Intelligence Service, National Bureau of Investigation, Communications Regulatory Authority and Defence Forces a mandate for a wide surveillance of online communications, including […]
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