European parliament
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EU Parliament promises a better document register
In 2011 the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) discovered that some European Parliament decisions regarding the ratification of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) were not recorded in any known document. A hidden class of documents (“coordinators’ minutes”) seemed to exist, but the Parliament denied their existence. The FFII filed a complaint with the […]
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Summary of the Commissioners-designate hearings
Between 29 September and 7 October the hearings of the Commissioners-designate in the European Parliament took place. This is a brief summary of the six hearings when the Commissioners-designate were answering to the MEPs’ questions regarding digital rights, privacy issues and trade agreements. Guenther Oettinger (Germany) is the nominee for the Digital Economy and Society […]
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Risk-based approach to data protection: risky for fundamental rights
On 18 September an EU Council document related to the draft EU data protection regulation was published. The document summarises the positions of Member States that have given their views on a so-called “risk-based approach to data protection”, within the context of the (so far) 30-month negotiations on a review of European data protection legislation. […]
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Panoptykon called on MEPs to stop mass surveillance
On 11 September 2014 digital right activists and advocates around the world commemorated the anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks on the WTC as the Freedom not Fear Day. It reminded decision makers and society as a whole that “absolute security” is a fallacy that can never be achieved, even in return for giving up all […]
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Interplay between data protection, competition law & consumer rights
On 2 June 2014, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) hosted an event in the European Parliament to discuss its preliminary opinion entitled “Privacy and competitiveness in the age of big data: The interplay between data protection, competition law and consumer protection in the Digital Economy”. This opinion and event is an attempt by EDPS […]
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ORG and DigiGes launch campaigns for the European elections
EDRi members Open Rights Group (ORG), UK, and Digitale Gesellschaft (DigiGes), Germany, have launched their campaigns for the WePromise.eu initiative for the European elections that will be held 22-25 May 2014. During the next term, European Parliament will face many crucial decisions concerning digital policy, ranging from privacy, copyright and net neutrality to mass surveillance. […]
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Net Neutrality – What happens next?
After the big vote on net neutrality in the European Parliament on 3 April 2014, many people are asking “what now”? The answer is that the Council of Ministers of the European Union will decide what parts of the overall “Telecoms Single Market Regulation” it can accept, which parts it wants to amend and which […]
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European Parliament votes on the Data Protection Reform and the report on Mass surveillance
On March 12, the European Parliament adopted the Data Protection Reform Package and the report on the impact of mass surveillance programmes on EU citizens. These votes represent another crucial step towards protecting European right to privacy and the completion of the long-awaited reform proposed by the European Commission back in January 2012. However, this […]
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US wants to undermine privacy in TTIP negotiations
In the EU-US trade negotiations (TTIP/TAFTA) the US tabled a proposal that would prohibit to require local data storage. If the EU accepts this proposal, the EU would give away an instrument essential to protect privacy. On 5 March 2014 the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament organised a meeting on the complex relationship between […]
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WePromise.eu: Digital Rights campaign unites Europe and unites political opponents
PRESS RELEASE – Brussels, March 11th Support is flooding in from voters and from election candidates for the WePromise.eu campaign. The premise is simple – voters sign a pledge to vote in the European Parliament elections, and to vote for a candidate that has signed the charter of ten digital rights principles. Hundreds of voters […]
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Net neutrality in the European Parliament – what is happening?
After seven months of discussions, negotiations, lobbying and general confusion, the European Parliament’s Industry Committee was due to have a vote on Monday of this week on net neutrality. So… what happened? Well, nothing happened. Not exactly nothing… quite a long discussion in fact. There were just two items on the agenda, a vote on […]
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Success or failure of the W3C’s DNT working group?
On 21 January 2014 MEPs Amelia Andersdottir (Greens/EFA) and Françoise Castex (S+D) organised a panel with the title “Do Not Track – Is Self-Regulation Enough?” with among others Robert Madelin (DG-CONNECT) and François Dubois (DG-JUST) on the panel. The discussion concentrated mainly on the perceived success or failure of the W3C’s DNT working group on […]
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