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June 4, 2003

Irish DPA threatens government with court case

According to an article in the Irish Times of 26 May, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner Mr Joe Meade has twice threatened to begin High Court proceedings against the Government for using an “invalid” Ministerial Direction to unconstitutionally store citizens’ phone, fax and mobile call data for 3 years. As reported in EDRI-gram nr. 3, […]

June 4, 2003

Finnish protest against EU copyright plans

EDRI-member Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFI) submitted a statement on a proposed EU Directive to harmonise the enforcement of intellectual property laws, including copyrights and patents, across member states. According to EFFI, the new directive is based too unilaterally on studies made for the media industry. For example, the proposal compares piracy to drug trade and […]

May 21, 2003 · Blogs

EDRI-gram – Number 9, 21 May 2003

May 21, 2003

German supermarket announces introduction of RFIDs

Last month, during a congress on supermarket logistics, German supermarket Metro AG announced the introduction of RFIDs to boost store efficiency and eliminate long checkout queues. The announcement comes at a time of heightened public awareness of the negative privacy-implications of this new track & trace technology. In March, clothing designer Benetton announced plans to […]

May 21, 2003

EP vote on software patents delayed

The vote in the European Parliament on a new EU Directive on Patent Law will most likely be delayed until the end of June. Originally, parliament was supposed to have voted in plenary this week. The delay is due to the immense differences in opinion between large software companies like Microsoft and IBM on the […]

May 21, 2003

Outsider recommended as new EU Data Protection Supervisor

In their vote yesterday on the future EU Data Protection Supervisor, the Committee of the European Parliament on Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) produced a very surprising result. Out of 8 possible candidates, a majority of the MEPs voted for the only candidate who has no record of dealing with privacy, data protection or even […]

May 21, 2003

Airport protests against data transfer to USA

EDRI and its partners held successful actions on 20 May at Schiphol (Amsterdam), Zaventem (Brussels) and Vienna airport. At all three airports EDRI members have provided airline passengers with important information about the transfer of their personal data to US authorities. Passengers were given a letter they can send to the national Data Protection Authority […]

May 21, 2003 · Blogs

Romania forbids free access to online pornography

Romania has adopted a new law to make free access to pornography illegal. Online pornography must always be protected by a password, and should always charge a fee per minute, to be declared with the fiscal authorities. Free access is explicitly forbidden in a law formally adopted on 20 May 2003. The law has raised […]

May 21, 2003

New cybercrime legislation in Romania

Romania has implemented the Cybercrime Convention in Title III of the Anticorruption law no 161/2003, published in the Official Monitor no 279 from 21 April 2003. Romania signed the convention in the end of 2001. There are no provisions regarding data retention, even though in some previous versions of the law there was an obligation […]

May 21, 2003

Trial of Nigerian spammers in the Netherlands

A gang of 6 Nigerian spammers was put to trial on 15 May. The gang was arrested last year in the Netherlands. Operating from Amsterdam the group posed as very rich businessmen from Nigeria. Victims were promised a lot of money in exchange for a temporary loan. The Dutch police estimates the gang earned at […]

May 21, 2003 · Blogs

Update on Swiss website blocking order

The internet censorship requests issued by the examining magistrate of the canton of Vaud (see EDRigram number 2 from 12 February) have been rejected on 30 April by a judge from the court of Lausanne. In December, over 30 providers had received the order, and while most of them installed some technical blocking-measures, they joined […]

May 7, 2003

European Court of Justice rules on copyright fees

A recent verdict from the European Court of Justice implies that all EU countries should choose the same legislative translation of ‘equitable remuneration’, a crucial formula in the European Copyright Directive. Weighing the case of the Dutch copyright collecting society SENA versus the national broadcasting organisation NOS, the Court explains how the 1992 EU directive […]