epicenter.works
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12 benchmarks for the reform and oversight of intelligence services in Austria
EDRi member epicenter.works presents the benchmarks against which the new reform of the Austrian Federal Agency for State Protection and Counterterrorism must be measured. With these criteria, guided strongly by international standards and jurisdiction, epicenter.works expect the legislative proposals on the reform in the next few weeks, ready to defend fundamental human rights.
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The pros and cons of moving to e-IDs
EDRi member Epicenter.works give their position on electronic identity (e-ID) in light of the continues work on e-ID in Austria. They share that as convenient as the e-ID may seem and as much it is being communicated as the logical evolution of the classic ID, caution must be exercised when it comes to creating, storing and accessing sensitive identity data. Utmost caution is required when the private sector and the state use shared infrastructures for this purpose.
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Austria’s biggest privacy scandal: residential addresses made public
Nobody took data protection into account for the so-called “Supplementary Register for Other Concerned Parties” (Ergänzungsregister für sonstige Betroffene). The Ministry for the Economy and the Finance Ministry are responsible for a data breach to which the Austrian Economic Chambers were an accomplice.
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Portuguese ISPs ignore telecom regulator’s recommendations
In 2018, the Portuguese telecom regulator ANACOM told the three major Portuguese mobile Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to change offers that were in breach of EU net neutrality rules. Among other things, the regulator recommended that ISPs publish their terms and conditions, and increase the data volume of their mobile data packs in order to […]
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BEREC workshop: Regulatory action by NRAs and consumer empowerment
On 29 May 2019, EDRi was invited to participate in a workshop of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) on the planned update of its Net Neutrality Guidelines. Thomas Lohninger from Austrian EDRi member Epicenter.works and Jesper Lund from Danish EDRi member IT-Pol represented our network. Lund provided the following input to […]
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Passenger surveillance brought before courts in Germany and Austria
EDRi members Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF, Society for Civil Rights) and Epicenter.works have taken legal action against the mass retention and processing of Passenger Name Records (PNR) before German and Austrian courts and authorities. The European PNR Directive (Directive 2016/681) requires airlines to automatically transfer their passengers’ data to state authorities. There, the data are […]
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Austria: New “responsibility” law will lead to self-censorship
Shortly after the EU gave green light to upload filters, two laws were proposed in Austria, with the alleged goal of tackling online hate speech, that rang the alarm bells.
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Record number of calls to the EU Parliament against upload filters
With just two weeks to go until the final vote on upload filters in the European Parliament, one hundred MEPs have pledged to vote against Article 13 of the proposed Copyright Directive. Many citizens feel like their legitimate fears about the future of the internet are not taken seriously as lawmakers insult them as being […]
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A study evaluates the net neutrality situation in the EU
Two and a half years after the adoption of the guidelines confirming strong protection for net neutrality in Europe, Austrian EDRi member epicenter.works published a study on the enforcement and status quo of net neutrality. The study entitled “The Net Neutrality Situation in the EU: Evaluation of the First Two Years of Enforcement” examines whether […]
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Net Neutrality vs. 5G: What to expect from the upcoming EU review?
Since 2016 the principle of net neutrality is protected in the European Union (EU). Net neutrality is a founding principle of the internet. It ensures the protection of the right to freedom of expression, the right to assembly, the right to conduct business, and the freedom to innovate on the internet. These protections came about […]
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Brussels up close – Experiences from the EDRi exchange programme
Learning and knowing abstractly how the EU works is one thing, seeing it up close and doing advocacy work right there is quite another! I am a Policy Advisor for the Austrian EDRi member organisation "epicenter.works – for digital rights" and, in October 2018, I spent two weeks with the EDRi office in Brussels. My aim was to get a better understanding of EU law making and advocacy.
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NGOs urge Austrian Council Presidency to finalise e-Privacy reform
EDRi member epicenter.works, together with 20 NGOs, is urging the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union to take action towards ensuring the finalisation of the e-Privacy reform. The group, counting the biggest civil society organisations in Austria such as Amnesty International and two labour unions, demands in an open letter sent on 6 November 2018 an end to the apparently never-ending deliberations between the EU member states.
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