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June 30, 2004 · Blogs

Analysis of online presence Romanian MPs

The online presence of Romanian MPs is still not very strong. According to a survey published by the Romanian eDemocracy group, the websites of the 2 chambers only present information and ignore bi-directional communication with citizens. In the absence of any interactive services, e-mail is the most important means of communication. But only 27% of […]

June 30, 2004

U.S. delaying biometric passport deadline

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted for a year-long delay of demanding visa waiver countries to introduce biometric passports for their citizens. The 2002 Border Security Act demands from 27 countries the inclusion of chips with facial images in their passports, in order to continue participation in the US visa waiver programme. A deadline […]

June 30, 2004 · Blogs

EDRI-gram – Number 2.13, 30 June 2004

June 30, 2004

European court condemns Dutch for faulty privacy-legislation

The European Court has condemned the kingdom of the Netherlands for a faulty implementation of the Privacy directive of 1997, also known as the ISDN-directive. In the Dutch telecommunication law of 1998 the obligation to erase or anonymise traffic data after termination of the call was not made specific enough, leaving ample room to the […]

June 30, 2004

EU Commission celebrates 10 years of TRIPS

10 years ago, on 23 June 1994, the TRIPS agreement was concluded as a part of the Marrakesh Agreement establishing the WTO. A good reason for the European Commission to have a party. After all, the Brussels executive body has not only taken the helm within the EU in transposing the agreement, but also goes […]

June 30, 2004

New EU questionnaire on data retention

The working party on co-operation in criminal matters (Justice ministry officials) has issued a new questionnaire about data retention to all member states. Answers have to be given by 29 July 2004, the results will be debated in the next meeting of the working party on 27 and 28 September 2004. Clearly the Dutch presidency […]

June 30, 2004

German privacy authorities criticise data retention

The data protection commissioners of 14 of Germany’s 15 states (Laender) as well as the National commissioner, Peter Schaar, have severely criticised the EU plan for mandatory traffic data retention and called upon the German government to vote against the proposal in the EU council of ministers. “There are good reasons why the national legislator […]

June 30, 2004

EDRI signs TACD resolution against PNR-transfer

On his last day as President of the European Parliament, Pat Cox finally decided to give in to the demands from the Legal Affairs committee and the majority of political group leaders. The European Parliament has now asked the European Court of Justice to annul the recently signed EU-U.S. agreement on transfer of airline Passenger […]

June 30, 2004

EU initiative to make DRM more acceptable

The European Commission has funded a new project to make Digital Rights Management more acceptable to consumers. INDICARE (the Informed Dialogue about Consumer Acceptability of DRM Solutions in Europe) is distributing its first e-mail newsletter this week. The newsletter includes links to articles on the INDICARE website that are conceived as the starting point for […]

June 30, 2004

French privacy authority forbids mail-service

The French data protection authority CNIL has declared the new U.S. mail-service ‘Did they read it?’ illegal. Through this service, launched in May 2004 by Rampell Software, subscribers get a report about the exact time their e-mail was opened, for how long, on what kind of operating system and if the mail was forwarded to […]

June 30, 2004

WSIS Tunisia prepcom report

The first Prepcom of the WSIS second phase took place from 24 to 26 June 2004 in Hammamet, Tunisia. The Prepcom started with major obstruction of civil society participation even before civil society could make their first intervention in the governmental plenary session. On the second morning of the Prepcom, the Tunisian ambassador objected in […]

June 30, 2004 · Blogs

E-Openness awards for Ukrainian city councils

During the international conference in Kiev ‘Freedom of Information, Transparency, E-governance: Civic Society View’ on 15 June 2004 the first Awards for E-Openness in the Ukraine were presented to 4 city councils. The aim of the Award is to demonstrate best practices of local authorities in interaction via official web sites. The Award is called […]