Our work
EDRi is the biggest European network defending rights and freedoms online. We work to to challenge private and state actors who abuse their power to control or manipulate the public. We do so by advocating for robust and enforced laws, informing and mobilising people, promoting a healthy and accountable technology market, and building a movement of organisations and individuals committed to digital rights and freedoms in a connected world.
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EP Rapporteur sceptic about biometrics in ID-cards
Ole Sorensen, the Rapporteur for the European Parliament on two proposals for Council Regulations to include biometric identifiers into visas and ID cards, is questioning the proportionality and the adequacy of this measure to enhance security standards of EU travel documents. In a Working Document discussed at an internal meeting with the shadow rapporteurs of […]
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Retrial of DVD-Jon in Norway
The Norwegian Jon Johansen pleaded ‘not guilty’ during the retrial on 2 December of his acquittal for reverse-engineering DVD technology and creating DeCSS in 1999. DeCSS is computer software that Johansen and others wrote in an effort to build an independent DVD player for the Linux operating system. In January 2003, a three-judge panel in […]
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Dutch parliament questions crypto telephone
The presentation of a crypto mobile telephone has stirred some controversy in the Netherlands. The Cryptophone has been developed in the Netherlands and is sold through a German company. The device is a combined GSM and organiser running Windows Pocket PC. The software encrypts the call when connecting to another Cryptophone. The Cryptophone should make […]
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UK government's biometric plans undermined
The biometric technique that has been selected for incorporation into the new UK national ID card has been undermined in the scientific press. New Scientist has reported that the technique of iris scanning is not as perfect and infallible as the Home Secretary (Minister of Internal Affairs) has claimed. The article alleged that the technology […]
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European court allows trademark Fur Elise
According to the European Court of Justice, music can be deposited as a trademark in Europe. This is the outcome of a test-case instigated by the Dutch trademark agency Shieldmark. The founder of the company Shieldmark formally sued his father, founder of the trademark agency Kist, in order to get a European trademark on part […]
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French provider wins lawsuit about website
The French provider RAS does not have to remove a website from the trade-union SUD-PTT. On 24 November a Paris court rejected the claim from 2 telemarketing companies that the website was both hurtful and defamatory. The rejection is technical; the companies should have chosen 1 single argument for their complaint. The contested remarks state […]
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Statement on human rights in the information society
Early in November independent experts from all regions of the world met in Geneva to discuss about the fundamental human rights in the information society. The meeting was supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the European Commission, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Government of Mali, […]
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FIPR workshop on snooping-laws in the UK
On 22 October, EDRI members FIPR and Privacy International held a public meeting to assess proposed government legislation to retain and snoop on information about the phone and Internet activity of everyone in the UK. Speakers from the government side tried to convince a sceptical audience that the plans were a necessary and proportionate response […]
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EU court of justices rules against personal data on website
Pointing to different persons on a website and making them recognisable by naming them or in any other manner is an act of processing of personal data and must therefore be dealt with under EU Directive 95/46/EC. That’s the substance of a recent judgement of the European Court of Justice (reference number C-101/01; case Bodil […]
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Big brother awards presented in Hungary
On 6 November the Hungarian Big Brother Awards were presented to the police office of Budapest, to the small company Szabo Gardentechnics and to the under-secretary of the ministry of internal affairs. With the Big Brother Awards governments, companies and people are named and shamed for large scale privacy invasions. The Budapest police earned the […]
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RFID-blocker wins German idea-contest
The German civil rights and privacy-organisation FoeBuD is the winner of an idea-contest for a national awareness campaign about the infringement of civil liberties through new technologies. With the price of 15.000 Euro, FoeBuD wants to develop a ‘Dataprivatizer’, a tool to detect RFID’s, minuscule spy-chips that are increasingly built into consumer goods. RFID (Radio […]
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French study warns against spam via Plaxo
The ad-hoc French organisation ‘halte au spam’ (stop spam) organised a successful forum on spam in Paris on 3 November. The forum was attended by more than 200 people, including 25 journalists. During the forum an interesting new study was presented about the privacy-dangers of social internet-tools like Plaxo. Plaxo’s service invites you to upload […]
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