January 15, 2004

PNR: Bolkestein misleads European Parliament

Commissioner Frits Bolkestein concealed important details on the draft agreement reached with the USA on the transfer of Passenger Name Record Data (PNR) to the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection when reporting to two Committees of the European Parliament four weeks ago. This is what Bolkestein’s spokesman Jonathan Todd has admitted in an […]

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December 15, 2010

Rule of law in the hands of private companies.Wikileaks is just the start.

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Das Prinzip der Rechtsstaatlichkeit in den Händen der Privatwirtschaft: WikiLeaks ist erst der Anfang | http://www.unwatched.org/node/2437] Private-sector attempts to undermine and attack the ability of WikiLeaks to function on the Internet have attracted much attention. Their domain name (wikileaks.org) was was taken out of service by EveryDNS, their […]

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June 6, 2007

Italian Government criticized by the Free Software Association

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) After filing a case to the Regional Administrative Tribunal of Lazio against the Italian Ministry of Work for launching a call for tenders where only Microsoft software was considered as eligible, Italian NGO Assoli (Associazione Software Libero) is criticizing again its Government. The problem arose when the […]

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November 16, 2011

Unlocking education in the Netherlands

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Befreit die niederländische Bildung | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_9.22_Befreit_die_niederlaendische_Bildung?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20111116] Dutch schools are progressively locking out students from online environments due to the use of proprietary web-technology (Silverlight) and closed standards. This contravenes with the 2007 Netherlands Open in Connection policy framework that mandates the use of open standards for all public […]

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June 18, 2008

OOXML standard on hold by ISO

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) International Standards Organisation (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in Geneva have postponed the publication of the revised specification of Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) document format, following complaints filed by their member organizations representing these four countries: Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela. The planned […]

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November 7, 2012

Irish DPA announces action on failed police self-regulation

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Fehlgeschlagene Selbstregulierung bei der Polizei: Irische Datenschutzbehörde kündigt Maßnahmen an | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_10.21_Fehlgeschlagene_Selbstregulierung_bei_der_Polizei?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20121107] Apparently illegal abuses of the Irish police (“An Garda Síochána”) database show no sign of being brought to an end, despite repeated announcements on the issue by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC). Problems with the […]

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January 28, 2009

UK: Phorm threat

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) One particular commercial threat to internet privacy should be looked at very closely by our fellow European Digital Rights campaigners. That threat is Phorm: an invasive and probably illegal web advertising technology that could soon be coming to you. Phorm works by looking at the web traffic […]

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January 13, 2010

IP Chapter in the EU-Korea free trade agreement essentially flawed

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [IP-Kapitel des EU-koreanischen Freihandelsabkommens ist im Wesentlichen fehlerhaft | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1653] The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) calls upon the EU Parliament and member states to remove the intellectual property rights chapter from the EU – Korea Free Trade Agreement. According to the FFII analysis, the free […]

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July 2, 2008

ENDitorial: Sweden is listening to all internet and phone conversations

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) In Denmark we already have Data Retention in place and the rest of Europe will follow soon. That means that our own countries demand that Internet companies and phone companies log who we phone, email with, chat with, which websites we visit, etc. This is something that […]

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January 28, 2009

France: Who have they forgotten to control today?

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) The CNIL, the French Data Protection Authority, has published on 20 January 2009 a report on a massive control operation it conducted on the STIC (“Système de traitement des infractions constatées” or “Recorded offences treatment system”), a huge police database. The report reveals that the STIC is […]

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July 2, 2008 · Blogs

Recommanded Reading

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) Article 29 Working Party – Opinion 2/2007 on information to passengers about the transfer of PNR data to US authorities, Adopted on 15 February 2007 and revised and updated on 24 June 2008 http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2008/wp151_en.pdf Kieran Poynter’s Review of information security at HM Revenue and Customs http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/0/1/poynter_review250608.pdf Independent […]

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January 28, 2009

Privacy in Germany 2008: A new fundamental right, a privacy mass movement, and the usual surveillance suspects

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) The year of 2008 can be marked as the year where privacy moved high on the public agenda in Germany. On 1st of January, the law on data retention went into effect, which made Germany drop from number one to seven in the country ranking published by […]

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