Vrijschrift
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Top system and the right to repair
Some questions take thirty years to answer, even if just partially. In the early ’90s of the previous century, the EU legislative process was a battleground of American tech behemoths and some national champions from the EU. The legislative dossier was what was to become the 1991 Software Directive. And it was seen as an opportunity for European tech companies and others to break the hegemony of IBM through interoperability.
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Data protection safeguards needed in EU-Vietnam trade agreements
On 12 February 2020, the European Parliament gave consent for the ratification of the EU-Vietnam trade and investment agreements. The trade agreement contains two cross-border data flow commitments. The related data protection safeguards in this agreement are similar to the ones in the EU-Japan agreement, which entered into force in February 2019. Civil society organisations […]
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ICANN and GDPR – nowhere near compliance
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Initial Report of the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) on the Temporary Specification for generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) Registration Data Team makes for difficult reading. This is because, though it contains a serious attempt at complying with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance, it […]
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EU – Japan trade agreement undermines algorithmic transparency
The EU trade agreement with Japan undermines algorithmic transparency, Dutch EDRi member Vrijschrift wrote in a letter to the Dutch Parliament.
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EU-Japan trade agreement not compatible with EU data protection
The EU and Japan have announced the conclusion of the final discussions on a trade agreement, the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). Regarding cross-border data flows and data protection, the European Commission’s press release states that recent reforms of their respective privacy legislation offer new opportunities to facilitate data exchanges, including through a simultaneous finding […]
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The GS Media case: An attack on the world wide web
The cliché goes that “hard cases make for bad law”. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) judgment in GS Media case (C‑160/15) is one of the real-life examples of this. It is not easy to sympathise with the losing party, GS Media, who exploits a provocative blog with the name “GeenStijl” (which […]
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Will the European Parliament ask Court whether ISDS is legal?
In a letter to the European Parliament, Dutch EDRi member Vrijschrift suggests the Parliament ask the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) whether the investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is compatible with the EU treaties. Vrijschrift points out that the ISDS in the trade agreement with Singapore would expose our privacy to interference, expose […]
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Dutch civil rights group highlights dangers of ISDS in trade deals
On 9 March 2015, EDRi-member Vrijschrift sent a letter to the Dutch Parliament, highlighting the dangers of investor-state dispute settlement clauses (ISDS) in the trade agreements with Canada (CETA) and Singapore (EUSFTA) that the European Union is currently negotiating. On 25 March, EU Ministers of Trade will meet informally to discuss trade agreements, and in […]
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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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