May 24, 2006

PM supports UK ID Cards Act

Tony Blair stated a strong support for the ID card Act that was initially rejected by the House of Lords in January this year. The Government had considered the card as essential in the fight against crime, illegal immigration, and identity theft. However, the House of Lords required from the Government to give further clarifications […]

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November 2, 2011

The Russian Government plans to control the online media

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Russische Regierung will Kontrolle über Online-Medien übernehmen | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_9.21_Russische_Regierung_plant_Online-Medien_zu_kontrollieren?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20111110] Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal supervisory agency for communications, information technology and mass media, is presently testing a search software to trace “extremist” content on the Internet, planning to start using it in December 2011. The software will check text, audio […]

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June 7, 2006

New Czech Police draft act allows taking DNA samples by force

The Czech Senate, upper chamber of the Parliament, approved on 25 May 2006 the amendment of the Criminal Proceedings Code and Police Act, which empowers police officers to take DNA samples and other identification samples as fingerprints. According to the draft police can take the DNA samples even by using force in case of resistance. […]

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November 19, 2003

Finnish petition against software patents big success

EDRI-member Electronic Frontier Finland collected 2295 signatures in one week on its online petition against software patents. The petition was presented to the Finnish parliament on 14 November. Ville Oksanen, vice chairman of EFFI, who acted as the head of the delegation comments:”We were received by MPs from every major parliamentary group, which was a […]

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June 6, 2007

IPRED2 on the DROIPEN table

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) The Second Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED2) is now going through the Justice and Home Affairs route. On 4 June, it passed it’s first port of call at the Council’s Working Group on Substantive Criminal Law (DROIPEN) – the first step on the road to the […]

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September 20, 2017 · Blogs

Should video-sharing platforms be part of the AVMSD?

The Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) is currently being reformed. After going through several legislative stages, the AVMSD is now being negotiated in trilogues, that is, informal, secret negotiations between the European Parliament (representing citizens) and the Council (representing EU Member States), facilitated by the European Commission (representing EU interests). As part of the negotiations, […]

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December 16, 2009

Spain discusses shutting down websites without court order

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Spanien berät über die Schließung von Webseiten ohne richterliche Verfügungen| http://www.unwatched.org/node/1628] Despite the recent statements of Spanish culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde and the warnings received from Commissioner Reding, the Spanish Government announced at the beginning of December 2009 a proposal that may lead to shutting down websites that […]

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July 15, 2015 · Blogs

ICANN considers banning privacy services

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is proposing a new Internet policy which comes at the expense of human rights, especially privacy and freedom of speech. The proposed rules are addressed to companies that provide WHOIS privacy/proxy services (which restrict access to domain registrant information) and limit their availability to individuals only, […]

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January 28, 2004

Italy: five years data retention

On 28 January 2004, the Italian Lower House approved of a governmental decree-law on mandatory data retention by telephone and internet companies. Government issued the decree on 24 December 2003, without any prior parliamentary debate. All data about electronic communications must now be stored for a period of 5 years. According to the privacy-group ALCEI, […]

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September 20, 2017 · Blogs

Secret documents reveal: BND attacked Tor and advises not to use it

The German spy agency BND developed a system to monitor the anonymity network Tor and warned federal agencies that its anonymity is “ineffective”. This is what emerges from a series of secret documents published by the German Netzpolitik blog. The spies handed a prototype of this technology over to the US National Security Agency (NSA), […]

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October 24, 2012

Details on German State Trojan programme

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Details zum Deutschen Staatstrojaner | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_10.20_Details_zum_Deutschen_Staatstrojaner?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20121024] Some documents spotted by the Annalist blog that were issued by the German Government in July 2012, within a parliamentary enquiry about expenditures by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, clearly show more details about what was revealed a year ago […]

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June 18, 2008

EU Competition Commissioner backs open standards in eGovernment

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) The EU Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, publicly supported the use of open source software in eGovernment, in a public speech at a seminar hosted by OpenForum Europe in Brussels on 10 June 2008. Kroes encouraged the public institutions to use open standards, underlining the positive example of […]

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