data retention
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The terrifying expansion of Sweden’s state surveillance
For the last couple of years the Swedish parliament has been expanding the surveillance capabilities of law enforcement. After the European Court of Justice struck down Sweden's data retention law, the national parliament passed a replacement that did nothing to address any of the issues criticized in the first law. If telecom providers were to challenge it, which no one has shown any willingness to do, it would most likely be struck down again.
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Biometric ‘permission to travel’ scheme in Borders Bill will affect tens of millions of people
The attack on the asylum system proposed by the UK government in the Nationality and Borders Bill has provoked outrage. However, the Bill also includes proposals to introduce an electronic 'permission to travel' scheme that would involve gathering biometric and other data from tens of millions of people. The UK Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) is conducting legislative scrutiny on the Bill. EDRi's member Statewatch submitted written observations to the inquiry last week.
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Europe’s Data Retention Saga and its Risks for Digital Rights
It seems that despite several Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decisions in this area, the data retention saga is unlikely to come to an end any time soon. After the invalidation of its previous instrument, the 2006 Data Retention Directive, the European Commission is currently trying to devise a new plan for the retention of traffic and location data for law enforcement and security purposes in the European Union (EU). The Commission stands at a crossroad: to intervene or not to intervene, that is the question.
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Fear and loathing in the UK adequacy decision
The Council of the European Union unanimously approved the United Kingdom (UK) draft adequacy decision. In an ideal world, this would indicate that the UK offers an adequate level of protection for personal data, and would signal their willingness to retain those standards. Unfortunately, reality tells a different story, that should be worrying for human rights advocates on both sides of the channel.
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Europol inches closer to increasing its powers despite lacking accountability
Europol was caught breaking the law and developing new initiatives without any proper legal basis (e.g. Europol’s innovation lab). Many proposed changes to Europol's mandate show an attempt to legalise the agency’s unlawful activities. In addition, this revision is happening even before the first implementation evaluation of Europol’s Regulation, planned for 2022, has been carried out. Without this evaluation, it is impossible to assess whether the current rules impede the fulfilment of the Agency’s missions and whether its working practices respect fundamental rights.
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CJEU upholds strict requirements for law enforcement access to electronic communications metadata
Traffic and location data may allow precise conclusions to be drawn about the persons involved, e.g. their social relationships or the social environments frequented by them. In most cases, the CJEU has only allowed access to such data for serious crimes. However, the CJEU ruled that access to retained data is only allowed in cases of serious crime when the access implies a serious interference, and in all criminal cases when the access does not imply a serious interference.
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ePrivacy strikes back
“And when we woke up, the ePrivacy Regulation was still there”, could be the EU bubble version of the famous micro-tale. Four years after the main text protecting privacy and confidentiality of people in the EU was proposed, Member States have finally given the green light to finalise the adoption. But, where will this lead us?
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The companies in control of our secret identities
EDRi member Privacy International published a research on ad tech companies' data collection practices which are employed to create an assumed picture of you. The study shows that the profiles created for the data subjects are based on information pieced together from incomplete data and using marketing algorithms. Hence, this data forms an uncanny picture of yourself, one that you may not have voluntarily revealed, a digital shadow over which you have very little practical control.
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Polish law on “protecting the freedoms of social media users” will do exactly the opposite
EDRi member Panoptykon Foundation carefully analyses the Polish law on “the protection of freedoms of social media users” which turns out to introduce data retention, a new, questionable definition of “unlawful content”, and an oversight body that is likely to be politically compromised.
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Data retention concerns resurfaces in Norway
EDRi member, EFN expresses serious concerns regarding the changes to the Norwegian Electronic Communications Act proposed by the Norwegian government.
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IuRe crowdfunds to end data retention in the Czech Republic
The digital-legal organisation, EDRi member, Iuridicum Remedium is crowdfunding to take the Czech government to court to end the widespread collection of metadata from telephone and online communication of every user in the country (so-called data retention). The case willrely on a ruling by the EU Court of Justice, which declared that the large-scale collection of metadata was inadmissible, for the third time last October. Crowdfunding a legal case in the public‘s interest is an alternative to dysfunctional class actions.
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Q&A: EU’s top court rules that UK, French and Belgian mass surveillance regimes must respect privacy
The Court of Justice of the European Union issued judgments in three cases in the UK, France and Belgium. Privacy International answers some of the main questions.
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