January 28, 2009

Romania: Is really privacy a topic in the public debate?

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) Privacy is a sporadic keyword in the Romanian mass-media. And even less used in public speech. Becoming an ideal motivation only when talking about some local stars’ private life and their juicy intricacies, the real debate on the most important issues lacks completely. The Human Rights Committees […]

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January 13, 2010

Hungary introduces mandatory open standards for public institutions

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Ungarn führt verbindliche Open Standards für öffentliche Institutionen ein | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1652] The Hungarian Parliament decided at the end of 2009 to make open standards mandatory for communications between public institutions, utility companies and citizens through the central governmental system. The Parliament amended Act LX of 2009 on electronic […]

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November 21, 2012

CleanIT looking for the question that it was seeking an answer to

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [CleanIT oder Wie war noch mal die Frage? | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_10.22_CleanIT_oder_Wie_war_noch_mal_die_Frage?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20121107] Few people know that CleanIT was born from another failed project – the European Commission-led “dialogue on illegal online content”. In that “dialogue”, the European Commission (DG HOME) sought to persuade Internet hosting companies to delete websites containing […]

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December 1, 2021 · Blogs | Press releases | Privacy and data protection | Biometrics | Privacy and confidentiality | Surveillance and data retention

New German government calls for European ban on biometric mass surveillance

The newly-agreed German government coalition has called for a Europe-wide ban on public facial recognition and other biometric surveillance. This echoes the core demands of the Reclaim Your Face campaign which EDRi has co-led since 2020, through which over 65 civil society groups ask the EU and their national governments to outlaw biometric data mass surveillance.

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November 30, 2011

Proposed US-EU PNR Agreement made public

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Details zum geplanten US-EU PNR-Abkommen durchgesickert | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_9.23_Details_zum_geplanten_US_EU_PNR_Abkommen_durchgesickert?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20111130] On 17 November 2011, U.S. and EU officials initialled a proposed agreement to authorize airlines to forward passenger name record (PNR) data to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Although the agreement cannot take effect without the approval of […]

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July 4, 2007

Final agreements between EU and USA on PNR and SWIFT

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) After a long and difficult period of negotiations, on 28-29 June 2007, final agreements were reached between EU and USA on the data regarding European financial transactions operated by Belgian consortium SWIFT and on the passenger name records (PNR) issue respectively. Regarding the access to financial data […]

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August 12, 2015 · Blogs

Facebook patent: Lending based on social connections

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has granted Facebook a patent which could allow “authenticating an individual for access to information or service based on that individual’s social network.” The main use for this technology is to allegedly prevent members of a network from sending spam to other members with whom they aren’t […]

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February 12, 2020 · Blogs | On the ground | Privacy and data protection | Data protection standards | Transparency

Cloud extraction: A deep dive on secret mass data collection tech

Mobile phones remain the most frequently used and most important digital source for law enforcement investigations. Yet it is not just what is physically stored on the phone that law enforcement are after, but what can be accessed from it, primarily data stored in the “cloud”. This is why law enforcement is turning to “cloud […]

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April 17, 2024 · Blogs | Press mentions | Equal access to the internet | Inclusive technologies | Platform regulation

Tech platforms must drop addictive features that harm young people

Social media companies construct their platforms in ways that make them addictive. Algorithms show individuals things that they think will keep them hooked for longer. 

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January 28, 2009

Some EU data protection policy developments in 2008

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) Will the 2008 be remembered as the Data Retention implementation year or the first Freedom not Fear day? As always with the conclusions, we might answer better this question in 2009 or 2018. But let’s look at some facts from the last year now One of the […]

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January 12, 2011

French law Loppsi 2 adopted by the General Assembly

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Französische Nationalversammlung: Loppsi 2-Gesetz angenommen | http://www.unwatched.org/node/2498] The so-called Loppsi 2 law (loi d’orientation et de programmation pour la performance de la sécurité intérieure – law on guidelines and programming for the performance of internal security) was approved by the French General Assembly in its second reading on […]

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March 11, 2004

Austrian court demands control military snooping powers

The Austrian Constitutional Court (VfGH) has declared parts of the military power law (Militaerbefugnisgesetz, MBG) unconstitutional, in a decision dated 23 January 2004. The case was instigated by Social Democratic members of the Austrian Parliament. The decision does not repair all points that critics have raised. The military law was adopted in the year 2000 […]

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