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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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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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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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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September 10, 2003

Fines and prison sentence for Italian spammers

Italy is introducing tough fines and prison sentences against spammers. Senders of unsolicited junk e-mails can expect fines up to a maximum of 90.000 euros and 3 years in prison. The penalties go far beyond those in any other European country. All EU member states will have to outlaw spam by 31 October 2003 as […]

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May 18, 2016 · Blogs

Hungary: New government proposals raise concerns

The Hungarian government is ramping up its “terrorist” measures; a constitutional amendment that establishes a new state of exception is one of the measures it foresees as necessary to keep the population safe. The threat of terrorism in Hungary is considered to be low by the UK Foreign Office, the CIA, and Hungary’s Strategic Defense […]

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May 31, 2017 · Blogs

ENDitorial: Consumer protection MEPs launch attack on consumers

Documents leaked by Julia Reda, a Member the European Parliament (MEP) show that parliamentarians on the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), whose job it is to protect consumers and improve legal consistency in the EU, are planning an assault on citizens’ fundamental rights, legal coherence and even the ultimate authority of […]

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September 10, 2003

Danish conference on on-line freedom of expression

On 2 September the Danish network on the World Summit on the Information Society hosted a conference on Freedom of Expression in the Information Society. The conference addressed global tendencies of regulation of freedom of expression, the new Council of Europe Declaration on Freedom of Communication on the Internet, intellectual property rights, (traditional) media, access […]

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August 1, 2012

Czech Republic: Data retention – almost back in business

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Tschechien: Vorratsdatenspeicherung beinahe wieder in Kraft | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_10.15_Tschechien_Vorratsdatenspeicherung_beinahe_wieder_in_Kraft?pk_campaign=twun&pk_kwd=20120801] Nationwide preventive monitoring of electronic communication finds its way back into the Czech legal system. The original act was repealed in 2011 by the Constitutional Court – however, a new one is waiting only for the President’s signature. Privacy campaigners […]

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