Austria: Petition against Data Retention Directive

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: [Österreichische Bürger_inneninitiative gegen die Vorratsdatenspeicherung | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_9.24_Oesterreichische_Buerger_inneninitiative_gegen_die_Vorratsdatenspeicherung?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20111218]

Today, 14 December 2011, the Austrian Arbeitskreis Vorratsdaten (Working
Group against Data Retention Austria – AKVorrat.at) handed over a petition
to the Austrian Parliament, asking for the government to be obliged to
engage against the Data Retention Directive at the EU level and to evaluate
the whole set of existing anti-terror legislation.

Six years after the Data Retention Directive passed the European Parliament,
but only a few months after it was transposed into the national law, the
activists of AKVorrat presented the petition together with 4.471 Signatures
to the vice-director of the Austrian Parliament, Susanne Janistyn.

The Austrian Parliament has only recently introduced the possibility to sign
petitions online on its website, after they have been successfully submitted
on paper. Therefore, today’s event in the Parliament only marks a mid-term
goal for AKVorrat. Starting form Monday next week a broad online campaign
will be launched to reach the goal of 10 000 signatures online. Austrian
citizens starting from the age of 16 are entitled to sign petitions on the
Parliament’s website.

While data retention is the most prominent issue of the campaign, the
petition also targets the countless number of laws implemented with the
argument of fighting terrorism. Therefore, the Austrian Parliament is asked
to evaluate all of these laws and to abolish them, if they are found not to
be proportionate or necessary in a democratic society.

Only in April this year the Data Retention Directive was transposed into the
national Austrian law, which will come into force on 1 April 2012. From this
date on, Austrian citizens will have the opportunity to file complaints
against this law with the Constitutional Court of Austria. AKVorrat is
committed to use this opportunity extensively.

The Austrian Working Group to abolish the EU data retention directive visits
the vice-director of the Parliament Susanne Janistyn (14.12.2011)
https://www.vibe.at/node/52

Online-Campaign “Stoppt die Vorratsdatenspeicherung!” (only in German)
http://www.zeichnemit.at/

Arbeitskreis Vorratsdaten Österreich (AKVorrat.at) (only in German)
http://www.akvorrat.at

EDRi-gram 9.9:Data Retention has arrived in Austria (4.05.2011)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number9.9/austrian-data-retention-law

(contribution by Andreas Krisch – EDRi-member VIBE!AT – Austria)