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January 15, 2004

Norway: no more court cases for DVD-Jon

The case against DVD-Jon (Jon Johansen) finally ended on 5 January 2004, when the Norwegian Economic Crime Unit (Okokrim) confirmed it would not appeal the upholding of his acquittal on copyright charges to the Supreme Court of Norway. DVD-Jon won the first trial on the 6th of January 2003. The Norwegian Okokrim appealed but Jon […]

January 15, 2004

PNR: Bolkestein misleads European Parliament

Commissioner Frits Bolkestein concealed important details on the draft agreement reached with the USA on the transfer of Passenger Name Record Data (PNR) to the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection when reporting to two Committees of the European Parliament four weeks ago. This is what Bolkestein’s spokesman Jonathan Todd has admitted in an […]

January 15, 2004

French draft law obliges providers to monitor content

On 8 January 2004 the second reading by the French National Assembly of the draft law on Digital Economy (Loi sur la confiance dans l’economie numerique or LEN) stirred up public controversy. The law aims at transposing the E-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC) and part of the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications (2002/58/EC). The National Assembly […]

January 15, 2004

Launch of Irish Free Software Organisation

On 5 January 2004 the Irish Free Software Organisation (IFSO) was launched. Since June 2003, members of a European free software mailing list have been collaborating on issues such as software patents, and the European Copyright Directive. One of the founders, Ciaran O’Riordan, comments: “With Ireland holding the presidency of the EU for the next […]

January 15, 2004

Romanian journalist fired for internet posting

Ms Brindusa Armanca, a journalist from the Public Romanian Television, was fired recently for an internet posting. She was accused of spreading negative opinions about the public broadcaster via a discussion list on the internet. The discussion list is FreeEx, a public online forum dedicated to journalists hosted by Yahoo. The list is part of […]

January 15, 2004

Schengen information system goes biometric

With the planned inclusion of two biometric identifiers into EU Member States’ passports and ID Cards as well as Visa to the EU, it was only a question of time when the first plans to store these identifiers in an EU-wide database would be announced. The announcement came shortly before Christmas: Biometric data will, according […]

January 15, 2004

Data Dutch KLM passengers handed over to NASA

The US airline company Nothwest Airlines voluntarily handed over the personal data of possibly as much as 10 million US and European passengers to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Northwest Airlines has an alliance with the Dutch airline company KLM. The two companies have integrated their reservation systems and operate code-sharing flights from […]

December 18, 2003 · Blogs

EDRI-gram – Number 24, 18 December 2003

December 18, 2003

Dutch Lower House accepts compulsory identification

On 16 December the Dutch Lower House accepted a legal proposal to introduce compulsory identification for all persons from the age of fourteen. People unable to immediately show a valid passport, drivers license or (cheaper) identity-card risk a fine with a maximum of 2.250 Euro. Refusal will constitute a criminal offence. Every police-officer including military […]

December 18, 2003

Hustinx new EU data protection commissioner

Peter Hustinx, the Dutch data protection commissioner, will be elected today as the new EU data protection commissioner. The Conference of Presidents, composed of the heads of the Political Groups in the European Parliament, decided to back-down from their original idea to give the position to the Spanish magistrate Joaquín Bayo Delgado. He will now […]

December 18, 2003

PNR: EU Commission negotiates breach of law

On 16 December the European Commission presented the long-awaited outcome of its negotiations with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on the transfer of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data to the U.S. As expected, the outcome is a foul compromise, creating a permanent breach of law. According to European data protection principles, personal data can […]

December 18, 2003

WSIS report – the long way ahead

The first phase of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) ended in Geneva last week, after more than 18 months of preparatory process. Its 2 outcomes are a Declaration of Principles and a Plan of Action, both enthusiastically adopted by government representatives, though hardly discussed until the last hour. A major outcome is also […]