May 17, 2017 · Blogs

UK Digital Economy Act: Millions of websites could be blocked

The Digital Economy Act has become law in the United Kingdom. This wide-ranging law has several areas of concern for digital rights, and could seriously affect privacy and freedom of expression of internet users. One of the main concerns is that it will compel legal pornographic websites to verify the age of their users. The British […]

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March 15, 2006

Commission considers Microsoft still not compliant with EC Treaty

The European Commission sent a letter to Microsoft on 10 March 2006 stating Microsoft was still not compliant with the EC Treaty rules on abuse of dominant position. In March 2004, The Commission ordered Microsoft to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation, which would allow non-Microsoft workgroup servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs […]

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August 27, 2008

Successful appeal against backdoor in German anonymiser

Yesterday, an appeal-court in Germany suspended an earlier order to build a backdoor into Germany’s most famous anonymising service. The backdoor was removed immediately. According to the original court-order, the IP-addresses of all visitors to a certain website had to be logged and handed-over to the federal criminal police office. This vital information was not […]

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March 12, 2014 · Blogs

US wants to undermine privacy in TTIP negotiations

In the EU-US trade negotiations (TTIP/TAFTA) the US tabled a proposal that would prohibit to require local data storage. If the EU accepts this proposal, the EU would give away an instrument essential to protect privacy. On 5 March 2014 the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament organised a meeting on the complex relationship between […]

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October 21, 2009

Copyright in the digital environment

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Copyright in der digitalen Umgebung | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1556] During the 1st European Innovation Summit that was held on 12 – 16 October 2009 at the European Parliament in Brussels, a workshop on the future of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in Europe included a panel to debate the subject of […]

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July 17, 2013 · Blogs

Finland: A new citizens initiative – Lex Snowden

EDRi member Electronic Frontier Finland (Effi) has submitted on 8 July 2013, with support from Avoin Ministeriö, a citizens’ legislative initiative, titled “Yes We Can – The law for safeguarding of freedom of expression and privacy internationally”, to the Ministry of Justice. If the initiative collects 50 000 names (almost 1% of total population of […]

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May 31, 2017 · Blogs

Romanian Parliament: EU Copyright reform does more harm than good

While the European Parliament is in the middle of its discussions about the European Commission’s proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, similar discussions are taking place in a number of Member State parliaments. The results of these conversations will influence the position that Member States take in the discussions in […]

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July 18, 2012

Ireland: E-voting machines go to scrap after proving unreliable

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Irland: Unzuverlässige E-Voting-Geräte werden verscherbelt | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_10.14_Irland_Unzuverlaessige_E-Voting-Geraete_werden_verscherbelt?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20120718] The e-voting machines that were bought by the Irish Government in 2002 and which were supposed to be used for all elections are now being sold for almost nothing as scrap. The e-voting system was given up two years after the […]

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May 18, 2016 · Blogs

Danish ticketing system a threat to privacy

Like many countries, Denmark is replacing paper tickets for public transportation with electronic tickets. The Danish system, called Rejsekort (“travel card”), is a contactless chip card similar to the Oyster card in the United Kingdom and the OV-chipkaart in the Netherlands. At the start of the journey, the passenger holds the card in front of […]

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March 26, 2008

UK: Phorm targeted advertising practices – under pressure

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) A large controversy has been lately spurred in the UK by the new technology Phorm, which can track users’ online surfing habits in order to better target ads. The Phorm system is apparently meant to assign a unique identifying number to a user’s browser, which, according to […]

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August 1, 2012

ETSI standard for lawful interception triggers privacy questions

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [ETSI-Standard für rechtmäßige Überwachung wirft Datenschutzfragen auf | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_10.15_ETSI_Standard_fuer_rechtmaessige_Ueberwachung_wirft_Datenschutzfragen_auf?pk_campaign=twun&pk_kwd=20120801] The draft UK Communication Bill raises new privacy concerns after it has been revealed that the UK has also been driving the development of a European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) standard framework that allows interception of the content of […]

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July 31, 2013 · Blogs

Turkey: Social media and our rights

The EDRi member from Turkey Alternative Informatics Association together with other 11 NGOs from Turkey issued the following public announcement with the title “Reclaiming our rights on social media following the Gezi Park protests”: UN and some international organizations have declared Internet as the main tool of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. […]

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