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July 15, 2004

National parliaments challenge Council on software patents

Since the beginning of July, the European Parliament had two weeks to group up fractions and build coalitions. A new pro-EU Centrist and Liberal group has emerged, which will be the third strongest in the European Parliament after the Conservatives and Social Democrats. Due to all the political power game, there was not much time […]

July 15, 2004

Opinion data protection authorities on PNR transfer

The Article 29 Working Party that oversees the implementation of the EU privacy directive has released its opinion on the current state of affairs regarding the transfer of passenger data from EU airlines to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The Working Party notes that the Commission failed to take into account previous demands by […]

July 15, 2004

Libre Software Meeting 2004 conference report

The LSM conference has become an institution in France and around the globe. It all began in the year 2000 and has now become a well established meeting place for members and friends of the Free Software movement. Between 6-10 July 2004 about 700 persons gathered to discuss the bright future for users of Libre […]

July 15, 2004

Nominations Big Brother Awards UK / Austria

On 28 July, Privacy International will celebrate the 6th annual UK Big Brother Awards ceremony. From about 300 nominees a ‘Dirty Dozen’ was selected for the shortlist. Award categories for this year are as they have been in past years: Worst Public Servant; Most Invasive Company; Most Appalling Project; Most Heinous Government Organisation and Lifetime […]

July 15, 2004

Court attacks Dutch internet anonymity

By verdict of 24 June 2004 the Appeals Court of Amsterdam in the Netherlands has to a large extent limited the freedom of internet users to express their opinion anonimously. The main issue in this principal case was whether internet provider Lycos was required to hand over the personal data of one of its subscribers […]

July 15, 2004

Report about two copyright conferences

The annual ‘New Directions in Copyright’ conference was held 29 and 30 June 2004 at University of London, organised jointly by the Arts and Humanities Research Board and the Birckbeck School of Law. The focus was on legal issues pertaining to recent developments in copyright. The flat fee / compulsory licensing was under serious debate […]

July 15, 2004 · Blogs

EDRI-gram – Number 2.14, 15 July 2004

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 […]