austria
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Budget cuts incapacitate Austrian DPA: NGOs complaint to the EU Commission
Despite its growing responsibilities, the Austrian Data Protection Authority continues to be impaired by budget cuts. epicenter.works and noyb are filing a complaint with the European Commission about Austria not fulfilling its obligations of sufficiently funding its data protection authority and leaving millions of Austrians to deal with consequences of limited access to the fundamental right to data protection.
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GDPR Rights in Sweden: Court confirms that authority must investigate complaints
The Stockholm administrative court held that a complainant under Article 77 GDPR has the right to request a decision from the Swedish Data Protection Authority (IMY) after six months.
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Register research turned privacy disaster. Epicenter.works nominates Sebastian Kurz for a Big Brother Award
Research is important. Using research as a cover to obtain unchecked access to sensitive official data is not. At the beginning of July, the Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, submitted to pre-parliamentary consultation a bill that would cause a seismic shift in how the government treats its citizens’ data. EDRi's member epicenter.works shares that from a privacy perspective the present bill is fundamentally flawed and places an enormous amount of data covering the entire population at risk for abuse.
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Telecom reform in Austria: consumers must benefit from Router Freedom
Austria is reforming its telecommunications law to incorporate the new European directives on electronic communications. The Austrian government has now an unique opportunity to leverage router freedom at the legislative level to protect consumers and the market. EDRi's member epicenter.works sheds some light on the reform.
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Everyone wants to encourage encryption, except for one minister
The Department of Justice and Security in the Netherlands seems to be holding on to the idea that it is possible to weaken encryption "just a little". Simultaneously, the parliament and a monster alliance of organizations tells the minister over and over again: it's impossible. EDRi's member Bits of Freedom sheds some light on the on-going debate on the question.
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12 benchmarks for the reform and oversight of intelligence services in Austria
EDRi member epicenter.works presents the benchmarks against which the new reform of the Austrian Federal Agency for State Protection and Counterterrorism must be measured. With these criteria, guided strongly by international standards and jurisdiction, epicenter.works expect the legislative proposals on the reform in the next few weeks, ready to defend fundamental human rights.
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The pros and cons of moving to e-IDs
EDRi member Epicenter.works give their position on electronic identity (e-ID) in light of the continues work on e-ID in Austria. They share that as convenient as the e-ID may seem and as much it is being communicated as the logical evolution of the classic ID, caution must be exercised when it comes to creating, storing and accessing sensitive identity data. Utmost caution is required when the private sector and the state use shared infrastructures for this purpose.
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Austria’s biggest privacy scandal: residential addresses made public
Nobody took data protection into account for the so-called “Supplementary Register for Other Concerned Parties” (Ergänzungsregister für sonstige Betroffene). The Ministry for the Economy and the Finance Ministry are responsible for a data breach to which the Austrian Economic Chambers were an accomplice.
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Austrian Passenger Name Records complaint – the key points
Austrian EDRi member epicenter.works filed a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority (DPA) about the Passenger Name Records (PNR) in August 2019, with the aim to overturn the EU PNR Directive. On 6 September, the DPA rejected the complaint, which was a good news, because that was the only way to lodge a complaint […]
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PNR complaint advances to the Austrian Federal Administrative Court
On 19 August 2019, Austrian EDRi member epicenter.works lodged a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority (DPA) against the Passenger Name Records (PNR) Directive. After only three weeks, on 6 September, they received the response from the DPA: The complaint was rejected. That sounds negative at first, but is actually good news. The complaint […]
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Passenger surveillance brought before courts in Germany and Austria
EDRi members Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF, Society for Civil Rights) and Epicenter.works have taken legal action against the mass retention and processing of Passenger Name Records (PNR) before German and Austrian courts and authorities. The European PNR Directive (Directive 2016/681) requires airlines to automatically transfer their passengers’ data to state authorities. There, the data are […]
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Austria: New “responsibility” law will lead to self-censorship
Shortly after the EU gave green light to upload filters, two laws were proposed in Austria, with the alleged goal of tackling online hate speech, that rang the alarm bells.
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