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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April 22, 2015 · Blogs

New Danish PNR system will rival the EU PNR Directive

For the second time in the parliamentary year 2014-15, the Danish government has made a legislative proposal for increased access to Passenger Name Records (PNR). The draft law, currently in public consultation, also sheds new light on the use of PNR data by Danish customs authorities. So far, the PNR discussion in Europe has mainly […]

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May 31, 2017 · Blogs

Irish police phone tapping undermines citizens’ rights

An Garda Síochána, the Irish police force has fallen, yet again, under public scrutiny for privacy violations of innocent citizens. An investigation by the Irish Independent newspaper has found that members of the public had their phones tapped without proper justification. The widespread phone tapping was revealed after a senior officer tried to highlight his […]

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March 28, 2007

Civil liberties threatened by the new centralized EU fingerprint database

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) A proposal for the creation of a centralized database of fingerprints from all 27 EU countries was included in a new European Commission document that sets out the goals for 2008. The fingerprints database is to be operational by the end of 2008 and it will include […]

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September 10, 2003

New report finds problems with EU copyright law

European citizens could find many common activities banned as the EU Copyright Directive becomes law, a new report reveals. Transferring songs from a copy-protected CD to a Walkman or computer could be illegal, as could watching a DVD on a computer running Linux. ‘Implementing the EU Copyright Directive’, published 8 September 2003, reports on legal […]

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May 18, 2016 · Blogs

Advocate General: Dynamic IP address can be personal data

On 12 May Manuel Campos Sánchez-Bordona, Advocate General (AG) of the European Court of Justice (CJEU), gave his opinion in the Case Patrick Breyer against the Federal Republic of Germany, C-582/14. Patrick Breyer sued the German government for violating his right to data protection by storing the data about him visiting websites of the German […]

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June 27, 2018 · Blogs | Information democracy | Freedom of expression online | Platform regulation

Restoring freedom of expression in Spain: end the “gag law”

Spain has been one of the countries of the European Union that has most shamefully stood out for its government’s attitude against freedom of expression and information.

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September 10, 2003

German anonymiser raided by police

The legal victory for privacy was short-lived for the German web anonymiser AN.ON. Only 2 days after a German Court suspended a previous verdict to build a back door in the anonymiser, German police obtained a new court order to raid the offices. On Friday 29 August, the Lower District Court in Frankfurt /Main gave […]

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July 17, 2013 · Blogs

EC notice & action directive to come out of the drawer?

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Bleibt ‘Notice & Action’-Richtlinie in der Schublade? | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_11.14_Bleibt_Notice_and_Action-Richtlinie_in_der_Schublade?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20130717] On 3 July 2013, a number of nine MEPs sent a letter to Michel Barnier, European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, regarding a Notice-and-Action directive that was not prepared but subsequently not published or proposed by the European […]

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