Digital Rights Management

November 3, 2005

European Data Protection Supervisor newsletter

The European Data Protection Supervisor has started an e-mail newsletter to inform a general public about his activities such as opinions, policy papers and publications. The October newsletter contains brief information and links to the EDPS’s involvement in PNR and the Visa Information System. The newsletter also mentions a policy paper on the conflict between […]

October 20, 2005

Ombudsman demands transparency from EU Councils

The European Ombudsman (Mr Diamandouros) has come out in support of those calling for EU ministers to legislate in a more transparent manner. His report follows a call from a group of influential British MEPs on the UK to push for more openness, according to an article in EU Observer. “They pointed out that the […]

October 20, 2005

Data retention: Council barks but cannot bite

Charles Clarke from the UK Home Office uttered some incredibly harsh threats to the European Parliament committee on civil liberties (LIBE) on 13 October, the day after the Council meeting, but his barking could not conceal the fact the ministers of Justice and Home Affairs did not have any teeth to bite with. Several national […]

October 5, 2005

Consultation European Commission on library digitising

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on its program to digitise the collections of European libraries. The program on digital libraries is a response to a letter sent in April this year by six European presidents and priministers to create a virtual European library. On 30 September the Commission adopted a Communication on […]

September 21, 2005

Data retention proposal European Commission

The European Commission has finally launched its proposal for a directive on data retention. During a press conference today (21 September 2005), commissioner Frattini underlined how important it was that data retention would be decided in the first pillar, by Commission and Parliament and not by the ministers of Justice in the third pillar. Frattini […]

September 21, 2005

Draft directive data protection in EU police co-operation

In the first week of October the European Commission will publish a proposal for a Council Framework Decision on the protection of personal data exchanged by courts and police under the Third Pillar in EU Member States. Statewatch published a draft version earlier this week. The framework decision will allow the EU to move forward […]

September 8, 2005

New appeal Microsoft against European Commission

Microsoft has launched a second appeal case against the anti-trust decision by the European Commission in March 2004. On 10 August 2005 Microsoft filed a new complaint at the European Court of Justice (First Instance) in Luxembourg, asking for annulment of the decision to open up the Windows source code enough to create interoperability and […]

August 24, 2005

German industry position paper against data retention

The general German industry association (BDI) and the two telecommunication associations (BITKOM and VATM) have jointly published a strong position paper against the European proposals for mandatory data retention. The German industry calls on both the European Commission and the ministers of Justice and Home Affairs to provide a solid and adequate impact assessment, since […]

July 27, 2005

Act now: sign the EDRI petition against data retention!

July 27, 2005

New EU Commission proposal data retention

The European Commission has finally produced its draft directive on data retention. According to the Commission, all fixed and mobile telephony traffic and location data from all private and legal persons should be stored for 1 year. Data about communications ‘using solely the internet protocol’ should be stored for 6 months. The Commission does not […]

July 14, 2005

Europarl protests against UK push for EU data retention

On Wednesday morning 13 July 2005 UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke met with the European Parliament Committee on Citizens’ Rights, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE). His plan to push through data retention during the UK presidency of the European Council, no matter in what pillar, met with great protest. The Social-Democrats, the Greens and the […]

July 14, 2005

New Commission directive proposal on IPR

On 12 July 2005 the European Commission launched a new proposal for a directive and framework decision on the penal enforcement of intellectual property rights. The Commission proposes to penalise any infringements. According to Franco Frattini, the Commissioner for Justice, “the new measures proposed by the Commission form the criminal law front to the fight […]