bits of freedom
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High time: Policy makers increasingly embrace encryption
Encryption is of critical importance to our democracy and rule of law. Nevertheless, politicians frequently advocate for weakening this technology. Slowly but surely, however, policy makers seem to start embracing it.
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The privacy movement and dissent: Protest
This is the fourth blogpost of a series, originally published by EDRi member Bits of Freedom, that explains how the activists of a Berlin-based privacy movement operate, organise, and express dissent. The series is inspired by a thesis by Loes Derks van de Ven, which describes the privacy movement as she encountered it from 2013 […]
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Dutch NRA: T-Mobile may continue to violate net neutrality
EDRi member Bits of Freedom asked the Dutch national regulatory authority, Authority for Consumers and Market (ACM), to test the mobile operator T-Mobile’s subscription against the new European rules that protect net neutrality, to verify whether its “Data-free Music” service infringes upon the principle of net neutrality. On 11 October 2017, the ACM ruled T-Mobile […]
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Tear down the tracking wall
It has become a daily routine: “consenting to” being tracked, on the basis of meaningless explanations (or no explanation at all) before you’re allowed access to a website or online service. It’s about time to set limits to this tracking rat race.
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The privacy movement and dissent: Art
This is the third blogpost of a series, originally published by EDRi member Bits of Freedom, that explains how the activists of a Berlin-based privacy movement operate, organise, and express dissent. The series is inspired by a thesis by Loes Derks van de Ven, which describes the privacy movement as she encountered it from 2013 […]
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Netherlands: Sharing of travel data violated students’ privacy
It was all over the news on 22 August 2017: Translink, the company responsible for the Dutch public transport card “OV-chipkaart” had been passing student travel data to the Education Executive Agency responsible for student finance in the Netherlands (DUO). DUO uses this data to figure out whether students who claim to live on their […]
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ENDitorial: Draconian anti-terrorism measures instil terror
We are becoming more and more scared. Images of terror attacks influence our daily decisions. A friend of mine gets nervous when he has to travel past an airport by train, and another friend surprised me by telling me that this year he stayed home during gay pride. Several people have told me of times […]
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Dutch Senate votes in favour of dragnet surveillance powers
On 11 July 2017, the Dutch Senate passed the bill for the new Intelligence and Security Services Act. With the Senate vote, a years-long political battle has come to an end: the secret services have been given dragnet surveillance powers.
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Dissent in the privacy movement: whistleblowing, art and protest
This is the first blogpost of a series, originally published by EDRi member Bits of Freedom, that explains how the activists of a Berlin-based privacy movement operate, organise, and express dissent. The series is inspired by a thesis by Loes Derks van de Ven, which describes the privacy movement as she encountered it from 2013 to […]
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Dutch ban on zero-rating struck down – major blow to net neutrality
20 April 2017 was a bad day for net neutrality in the Netherlands, and possibly also in the rest of Europe. The court of Rotterdam struck down the general ban on price discrimination, including zero-rating, as enacted in the Dutch Telecommunications Act. The court held that the categorical ban on price discrimination is “evidently” in […]
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Dutch House of Representatives passes dragnet surveillance bill
On 14 February 2017 the bill for the new Intelligence and Security Services Act was passed by the Dutch lower house. Despite being met with serious opposition from experts, regulators, civil society, political parties, and citizens, the revised bill passed virtually unchanged from the proposal submitted to the lower house. It’s beyond disappointing that a […]
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Dutch Parliament: Safety net for democratic freedoms or sleepnet?
Currently, Dutch parliament is doing everything they can to get a dragnet surveillance bill approved before the elections on 15 March 2017. If they succeed, soon the online communications of Dutch citizens can, on a massive scale, get caught up in the secret services’ dragnet. So what’s happened since the last time we reported to […]
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