August 12, 2003

German debate about wiretapping statistics

After public criticism the German ministry of economy (Bundeswirtschaftsministerium) is withdrawing plans to discontinue the central yearly statistics on wiretapped telephones. In an article in ‘Focus’-magazine the ministry announced its intention to change the next draft of the telecommunications law accordingly. A week later the ministry issued a press release denying the abolishment plan. According […]

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March 12, 2014 · Blogs

Danish government plans to create a Center for Cybersecurity with privacy-invasive powers

In 2011, the Danish parliament voted unanimously to create a GovCERT service responsible for cybersecurity issues for government institutions and critical infrastructure. The 2011 law allows GovCERT to collect and retain traffic data (metadata) and packet data (contents) for the institutions and networks which are monitored by GovCERT. Data associated with security events can be […]

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May 17, 2017 · Blogs

AVMSD: European Parliament set to vote whether it’s allowed to vote

On 18 May 2017, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will vote on whether they want to work on the Audiovisual Media Services Directive reform now, or let a handful of MEPs represent over 500 million EU citizens in the so-called “trilogue” negotiations between the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of the EU, representing the […]

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November 20, 2019 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Privacy and confidentiality

ePrivacy hangs in the balance, but it’s not over yet…

Unless you have been living under a rock (read: outside the “Brussels bubble”) you will likely be aware of the long and winding road on which the proposed ePrivacy Regulation has been for the last three years. This is not unusual for a piece of European Union (EU) legislation – the 2018 General Data Protection […]

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August 12, 2003 · Blogs

New German idea-competition

BRIDGE, the German foundation for civil right in the digital society (Burgerrechte in der digitalen Gesellschaft) has opened an interesting idea-competition. People and organisations are invited to come with ideas for a public campaign to raise awareness about threats to freedom in the digital society. Topic and timeframe must be clearly defined. The winner, to […]

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May 31, 2017 · Blogs

ALTwitter: The treasure trove behind 140 characters

One of the main reasons why metadata is used broadly for surveillance and targeted advertisement is its extensive capability to capture more dimensions of useful information than the data itself. An ordinary internet user fails to see the mysterious nature of metadata because it is invisible to the naked eye. Law enforcement agencies and advertisers, on […]

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April 22, 2015 · Blogs

Legal Affairs Committee: ISDS and IPR must be excluded from TTIP

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) resolution in the European Parliament is coming to a conclusion. 16 April 2015 was the deadline for European Parliament committees to submit their opinions to the leading committee, the International Trade committee (INTA). EDRi-gram previously reported about the positive vote of the Civil Liberties Justice and Home Affairs […]

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May 18, 2016 · Blogs

Europol: Non-transparent cooperation with IT companies

Will the European Police Office’s (Europol’s) database soon include innocent people reported by Facebook or Twitter? The Europol Regulation, which has been approved on 11 May 2016, not only provides a comprehensive new framework for the police agency, but it also allows Europol to share data with private companies like Facebook and Twitter. The history […]

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July 17, 2013 · Blogs

Austria: Outsourcing data retention obligations to the US

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [VDS in Österreich: Auslagern der Speicherverpflichtung an die USA | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_11.14_VDS_in_Oesterreich_Auslagern_der_Speicherverpflichtung_an_die_USA?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20130717] During the ECJ lawsuit against the data retention (DR) directive it became clear that DR obligations may have been outsourced to contractors, maybe even to US-based companies, thereby giving US authorities potentially unrestricted access to all such […]

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May 18, 2016 · Blogs

EC wants to add facial recognition to transnational databases

On 4 May 2016, the European Commission (EC) published a proposal to recast the EURODAC Regulation. The European Automated Fingerprint Identification System (EURODAC) was initially introduced in 2003 to establish an EU asylum fingerprint database, and to share this information with national law enforcement authorities and Europol. According to this proposal, if a person applies […]

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March 12, 2008 · Blogs

Recommanded Reading

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) Council of Europe: Access to Information Convention: Seven Key Problems Remain in the Draft European Convention on Access to Official Documents http://www.statewatch.org/news/2008/mar/coe-access-convention-7-main-problems.pdf

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August 27, 2003

Air France spies on staff

According to an article in Transfert.net, Air France has been spying for years on some of its staff with the help of a camera hidden behind a clock. A union-member became suspicious when he took a close look at the thick electrical wires going to a clock in a private relaxation room on Roissy airport. […]

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