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Irish ISP introduces child porn blocking – doesn’t know why
The Irish broadband provider UPC has introduced blocking for web addresses that are alleged to contain child abuse material. It chose an interesting moment to do this – with the total number of domains allegedly hosting abuse material half what it was ten years ago and with sites staying online for historically short periods of […]
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UK format shifting and parody copyright laws come into force
On 1 October 2014, new copyright regulations adding exceptions for personal copying, parody, and quotation came into force in the UK. The personal copying exception allows copying of purchased media for private use. This includes format shifting and backups. The exception doesn’t cover making copies for friends, family or making copies of media you do […]
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UK: Emergency legislation on data retention pushed through
Faced with a lawsuit from NGOs challenging the legality of its data retention regulations (which are based on the data retention directive the European Court of Justice found unlawful in April 2014), the UK government brought in emergency legislation, a Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill (DRIP), to not only declare data retention to be […]
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Torrenz.eu suspended, but restored in absence of court order
Torrentz.eu, one of the most popular search engines for file-sharing websites, was taken offline on for linking to contents that infringe copyright. The site was taken down by the Poland-based registrar of its domain on 26 May 2014, after it had received a request from by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) in the […]
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Anniversary of Snowden revelations: The year we fight back
On 5 June 2013, the Guardian published Edward Snowden’s first documents. These showed that the NSA was using a secret court order to collect millions of customers’ phone calls of the US company Verizon. Snowden’s subsequent disclosures confirmed what many privacy activists were suspecting for a long time: that the US government and its allies […]
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UK adds format shifting and parody to copyright laws
The UK government has proposed regulations to add format shifting, parody and non-commercial text mining to copyright laws. After two major reviews, run by two different governments in 2006 and 2010, recommendations for greater flexibility in copyright have been tabled for voting in the UK. A debate and vote will follow at the start of […]
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UK privacy groups file complaint on medical data in Google Cloud
UK privacy groups Big Brother Watch, medConfidential and the EDRi member Foundation for Information Policy Research have filed a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK’s data protection authority. The complaint follows revelations that PA Consulting Group, a technology and innovation consultancy, uploaded a large quantity of data to Google’s cloud-based Big Data service […]
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UK ISP Filtering causes collateral damages
UK ISPs have started to implement a default filter for adult content online following the government’s endeavours which met success in 2013, under the pretext of protecting children from pornographic content. Unfortunately, UK ISPs have started to comply with the government’s requests. The default filter implies that all Internet providers need to opt-in in order […]
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UK home office not amused with big brother award
Yesterday, Privacy International announced the winners of the 5th Annual UK ‘Big Brother’ awards to the government and private sector organisations that have done the most to invade personal privacy in Britain. Winner of the award for worst public servant is London Mayor Ken Livingstone, for his efforts in transport surveillance. Prime Minister Tony Blair […]
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