January 10, 2018 · Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Cross border access to data | Data protection standards | Digital rights in trade agreements

EU-Japan trade agreement not compatible with EU data protection

The EU and Japan have announced the conclusion of the final discussions on a trade agreement, the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). Regarding cross-border data flows and data protection, the European Commission’s press release states that recent reforms of their respective privacy legislation offer new opportunities to facilitate data exchanges, including through a simultaneous finding […]

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November 24, 2014 · Blogs

Draft Commission Work Programme 2015: huge challenges for digital rights

EDRi has obtained a copy of the draft Commission Work Programme 2015. For those who have followed the nomination hearings of the Commissioners, this draft programme does not contain any major surprises. However, it does show the huge number of proposals and initiatives that will have a direct impact on our fundamental rights and freedoms […]

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October 9, 2013 · Blogs

The Lobbyists’ Charter

EDRi launched today, 9 October 2013, with expert input from the Transnational Institute and the Corporate Europe Observatory "The Lobbyists’ Charter" – a parody of the efforts of the US and European Commission to grant industry lobbyists impressive powers to restrict democratic decision-making now and in the future, as part of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and […]

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February 1, 2016 · Blogs

EDRi’s work in 2015

Information technology has a revolutionary impact on our society. It has boosted freedom of communication and democracy but has also led to new approaches to surveillance and is increasingly used to impose restrictions on fundamental rights. In the past year, we worked hard to ensure that your rights and freedoms in the online environment are […]

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February 6, 2014 · Blogs

We promise. What’s the point?

Maybe, after all of the noise about crazy ideas like “Clean IT” and ACTA, there won’t be any big digital rights files for the incoming European Parliament. Maybe we don’t need to worry about having parliamentarians who understand the internet and digital rights. Maybe there won’t be any relevant proposals anyway. Maybe we don’t need […]

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July 13, 2016 · Blogs

Study launch: The EU can achieve data protection-proof trade agreements

Today, on 13 July 2016, the University of Amsterdam’s Institute for Information Law (IViR) released a study on data protection and trade that BEUC, EDRi, CDD and TACD had commissioned. The purpose of the study was to have an independent assessment on the respect of privacy and data protection by trade agreements being negotiated by […]

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September 23, 2015 · Blogs

ENDitorial: EU Commission ISDS proposal – a threat to democracy

The European Commission has published its investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) reform proposal for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the EU-US trade agreement currently under negotiation, and future trade agreements between the European Union and third countries. On the positive side, the reform proposal removes unfair procedural advantages for the United States and tries […]

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January 13, 2015 · Blogs

Privacy Camp: Big data and ever increasing state surveillance

As every year, EDRi is co-organising a privacy camp for civil society as a warm-up event for the CPDP conference. The event will discuss big data and every increasing state surveillance and the sessions will focus on privacy and data protection challenges and possibilities in Europe. It will take place on Tuesday, 20 January 2015 […]

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February 3, 2016 · Blogs

TiSA resolution: what are you going to do about it?

The Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) is bizarrely and sadly not subject to the same public debate as other “trade” agreements, such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) or the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). While some do not find TiSA as “sexy”, it still contains provisions that should deserve all your attention. […]

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June 10, 2013 · Blogs

PRISM explains the wider lobbying issues surrounding EU data protection reform

The European Commission’s Communication on Cloud Computing (pdf) forecasts a spend of 45 billion Euro on such services in the EU in 2020. The stakes are therefore huge for the countries and regions that can show themselves to be trustworthy for the processing of both personal and business data. With no comprehensive federal privacy legislation […]

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June 19, 2013 · Blogs

US agencies have unlimited access to Internet data

According to documents obtained by The Washington Post and the Guardian, NSA and FBI are extracting e-mails, photographs, documents, video and audio chats directly from the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, within a programme called PRISM which has not been made public until now. As one of the documents mentions, the companies […]

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March 25, 2015 · Blogs

In Germany, Data Retention refuses to die

The debate is intensifying in Germany on whether telecommunications data retention should be reintroduced. At the centre of the controversy is Sigmar Gabriel, the leader of the Social Democrats (SPD, the smaller party in Germany’s “grand coalition” government since 2013), and consequently a government minister for the economy and chancellor Angela Merkel’s deputy. Gabriel’s role […]

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