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Big Brother Awards presented in 4 countries
The sixth edition of Swiss Big Brother Awards ceremony was held in Zurich’s Rote Fabrik on 29 October 2005. The Swiss jury received 100 nominations in four categories: government, business, workplace and the special life-time achievement award. The financial services branch of Swiss Post, Postfinance, was awarded the business award for the illegal transfer of […]
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Greek court will rule on CCTV
The Greek public prosecution service has filed an appeal on 11 October 2005 at the highest administrative court of Greece against a decision by the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (DPA) that a new large high-tech CCTV system in Athens can only be used to monitor traffic. The Greek DPA decided that the CCTV cameras could […]
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Recommended reading: cctv and workplace privacy
In the series Information Technology & Law, the Dutch University of Tilburg has published a volume on camera surveillance and workplace privacy, which includes 11 country reports. The European countries covered by the report are: the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, Germany, Hungary and Italy. The editors argue that Europeans, similar to the US, have a […]
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New French anti-terrorism surveillance plans
The French newspaper Le Monde has a number of articles on new plans from the French government for anti-terrorism legislation. On 6 September the Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin presented a rough impression of 16 new measures to the members of parliament. The package will be presented to the Council of Ministers in October 2005. […]
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Recommended reading: CCTV
Publication by the Development and Statistics Directorate of the English Home Office of the results of the first major research into the application of CCTV in the UK. The general conclusion about the effects on criminality is that camera surveillance is a powerful instrument, but it must be acknowledged camera’s are used in widely different […]
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EU consultation calls for social impact studies on nanotech
The European Commission puts nanotechnology high on the political agenda with its Communication ‘Towards a European strategy for nanotechnology’. The communication has been discussed at the political level in the European Council under the Irish and Dutch presidencies during the year 2004, and an on-line open consultation on the communication was held between August and […]
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Recommended reading: CCTV in Europe
The magazine ‘Surveillance & Society’ has a special double issue online about the politics and practice of CCTV. Under the title ‘The Politics of CCTV in Europe and Beyond’ the magazine examines the extraordinarily fast growth of closed circuit television (CCTV) in western societies. Papers on regulation and governance and a large number of case […]
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Online map of cameras in Zürich, Switzerland
The organising committee of the Big Brother Awards Switzerland has published a map of more than 70 video surveillance cameras in a city district of Zurich (Switzerland). The map was presented on the occasion of a public camera-spotting walk on 10 April 2004, that was organised as part of the annual ‘Spring surveillance’ events. Most […]
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UK: 4 million surveillance cameras
With four million CCTV cameras watching the public, the UK now has the highest level of surveillance in the world. The number of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras has quadrupled in the past three years, and there is now one camera for every 14 people in the UK. According to an article in the newspaper […]
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UK car-tracking plans
The UK police are coming to the end of their second phase trials on Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and preparing to roll out the technology nationwide next summer. ANPR tracks cars using the omnipresent CCTV systems and specialised fixed and mobile cameras. It can use government databases to detect untaxed, unroadworthy and uninsured vehicles. […]
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Call for public views on video-surveillance
The European data protection commissioners, united in the Article 29 Working Party, invite the public to respond to a position paper about videosurveillance. The paper gives an interesting overview of the differences in legislation and measures adopted in the different member states since the transposition of the Privacy Directive (95/46/EC). The Commissioners are specifically worried […]
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EUCD implementation stalled in Finland
Last week, the Finnish parliament returned the national copyright law proposal back to the ministry that originally drafted it. Electronic Frontier Finland heavily criticized the anti-circumvention provisions and other controversial issues of the proposal. After a parliamentary hearing on the 31st of January, the chair of the hearing committee announced it was impossible to continue […]
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