data protection
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Massive lobby against personal communications security has started
Since 2002, European citizens’ freedom of communication, the security of our communications devices, and the protection of our personal data in the online world have been safeguarded by the so-called e-Privacy Directive. This Directive is now up for renewal. Unsurprisingly, after the big online companies launched probably the biggest ever lobbying campaign to undermine the […]
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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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e-Privacy Directive revision: An analysis from the civil society
After the approval of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Directive for Law Enforcement Agencies (LEDP), the reform of data protection and privacy in the European Union (EU) now reaches the next step: the review of the e-Privacy Directive (Directive 2002/58/EC on privacy and electronic communications).
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PROCEED WITH CAUTION: Flexibilities in the General Data Protection Regulation
We regret that much of the ambition of the original data protection package was lost, due to one of the biggest lobbying campaigns in European history. However, we congratulate the European Parliament — for saving the essence of European data protection legislation.[1] On 14 April 2016, the European Parliament adopted two legal instruments that will regulate […]
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The lobby-tomy 7: Not all roads lead to privacy
Within the privacy world, different schools of thought exist. Connecting different viewpoints to a seemingly positive ideology is also sales technique. The new European data protection regulation is the most lobbied piece of legislation thus far. This is because the subject is very important and touches upon almost every aspect of our daily lives. Therefore […]
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EU Council & Commission plan to give law enforcement authorities access to data of foreign IT companies
EU Commissioner Věra Jourová revealed plans to increase the competences of criminal law enforcement authorities in a speech at the European Criminal Law Academic Network. She announced that the Council of the European Union is currently drafting Conclusions. This draft document calls for law enforcement agencies to have direct cross-border access to personal data held […]
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Europol: Non-transparent cooperation with IT companies
Will the European Police Office’s (Europol’s) database soon include innocent people reported by Facebook or Twitter? The Europol Regulation, which has been approved on 11 May 2016, not only provides a comprehensive new framework for the police agency, but it also allows Europol to share data with private companies like Facebook and Twitter. The history […]
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Danish ticketing system a threat to privacy
Like many countries, Denmark is replacing paper tickets for public transportation with electronic tickets. The Danish system, called Rejsekort (“travel card”), is a contactless chip card similar to the Oyster card in the United Kingdom and the OV-chipkaart in the Netherlands. At the start of the journey, the passenger holds the card in front of […]
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The lobby-tomy 5: legal help or political choices?
Is legal help always objective? Writing laws is a complicated process. A frequently used lobby strategy involves offering “legal help” and arguments that promise legal certainty. Parties claim to make no substantive choices for policy makers, but is that really the case? The new European data protection regulation is the most lobbied piece of legislation […]
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The biggest data breach in Turkish history
About 50 million personal records of Turkish citizens have been made publicly available in a searchable database on the internet. Ironically, although the site that holds the database is open to the entire world, it is one of the 110,000 sites blocked by Turkish government and can only be accessed from Turkey via a virtual […]
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New data protection law in Turkey
Turkish Parliament enacted the Data Protection Law on 24 March 2016 and it entered into force on 7 April. There had been several attempts for enacting the Law over the course of more than 10 years, but all of the bills were later withdrawn by the AKP – Justice and Development Party (the ruling party […]
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Special report: Poland’s secret services are still using and abusing telecom and Internet data
With almost two million requests for telecommunication data and more than two thousand requests for Internet data concerning Polish citizens in 2015, it is clear that the access to metadata in Poland by the country’s secret services is still out of control. Compared to 2014, the Polish Panoptykon Foundation found that the number of requests […]
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