european commission
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EU continues push for travel surveillance by the back door
The European Commission has released its plans for providing financial support to national security measures. These plans, despite the absence of a legal basis, privacy concerns and a pending EU Court of Justice (CJEU) decision, include the financing of a European mass surveillance measure: namely the long-term storage and exchange of citizens’ air travel data, […]
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Press Release: Privacy and Data Protection under threat from EU Council agreement
Following today’s meeting of the Justice Ministers Council in Luxembourg where an agreement was reached on the proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), EDRi and Privacy International would like to present the following statement: In January 2012, the European Commission, following extensive consultations, published a draft Regulation. The initiative had three priorities – […]
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EU Commission set to re-brand the failed CleanIT project
Every once in a while, the European Commission launches talks with the Internet industry to encourage companies to take voluntary actions in response to a very diverse range of possibly illegal or unwanted online activity. Past initiatives have not been hugely successful, and they have frequently raised concerns regarding their vagueness, their lack of transparency […]
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Net Neutrality – building on success
[This post is published jointly with Access] Tomorrow, the European Parliament will decide whether or not it supports a proposal for anti-Net Neutrality legislation (PDF – last publicly available document) advanced by the representatives of the EU member states (“the Council of the EU”). For the past few months, the Latvian presidency of the Council […]
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Parental Controls: Lawless blocking/filtering as part of “net neutrality”?
At the request of the United Kingdom, the Council of the European Union, the European Commission and European Parliament appear ready to adopt – in the context, ironically, of measures that are supposed to protect net neutrality – provisions which are meant to allow UK-style blocking and filtering across Europe. This approach was opposed in […]
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Net neutrality – is the European Parliament ready to accept complete failure?
After an overwhelming vote in favour of net neutrality by the European Parliament in April 2014, this position in favour of free speech, competition and innovation is now in danger. The negotiations between the European Parliament (the only directly-elected institution of the European Union) and the Council of the European Union (“the Council,” representing the […]
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Emotion tracking company gets funding from the European Commission
Realeyes is a London based start-up company that tracks people’s facial reactions through webcams and smartphones in order to analyse their emotions. The analysed data is used to help companies maximise the impact of their advertising and market research campaigns. The technology allows the companies to know how consumers feel when they view the video […]
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Digital Single Market: A missed opportunity
The European Commission (EC) published its Digital Single Market (DSM) strategy on 6 May 2015. EDRi is thoroughly studying the DSM strategy and its impacts on European citizens’ digital rights. A day before the official publication of the strategy, EDRi issued a press release expressing concerns based on the analysis of the leaked drafts (Draft Communication […]
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Digital Single Market: Will citizens be at the centre of the Commission’s plans?
PRESS RELEASE. The European Commission is expected to publish its Digital Single Market (DSM) strategy tomorrow, 6 May. Based on our analysis of the leaked drafts (Draft Communication and Evidence Note), the strategy is likely to include a number of points that raise concerns regarding, inter alia: Privatised law enforcement We have concerns regarding Commissions’ plans […]
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Citizens’ groups from around the world call on EC to defend privacy
The institutions of the European Union are completing a reform of Europe’s Data Protection framework. Recognising the huge significance of the reform, the European Commission made an unequivocal promise when it launched the process. As an “absolute red line”, the level of protection of individuals’ data would not fall below existing levels. However, leaks show […]
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Net Neutrality: document pool II
On 4 March 2015, the Presidency of the Council of the European Union received the mandate from the Member States to start negotiations with the EU Parliament and the Commission on the “Telecommunications Single Market Regulation”, which includes provisions on net neutrality. The trialogue discussions between the three institutions officially started on 23 March 2015. […]
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NOW OR NEVER: European citizens stand up to save the internet
Today, European civil society groups have relaunched “Save the Internet”, a European wide campaign aimed at defending net neutrality in Europe. The campaign calls on concerned internet users in Europe to contact their representatives in the European Parliament to ask them to maintain their strong position on net neutrality. Internet users will lose the freedom […]
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