Data protection standards
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Limiting the storage of traffic data
The European data commissioners (through the Article 29 working group) have pleaded for a maximum storage period of half a year for traffic data that telecommunication companies store for billing purposes. With the opinion paper the working group tries to limit the duration and scope of traffic data storage. “Traffic data should be kept for […]
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Update on anti-spam legislation
In the previous EDRI-gram 6 EU-countries were mentioned that already have a spam-ban, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Greece, Italy and Austria, plus Hungary and Norway in Europe-at-large. We can now add France, Romania and Poland to this list. French E-Commerce Directive (approved 26.02.2003 in the Lower House) http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/ta/ta0089-2.pdf Polish E-commerce Directive (effective 10.03.2003) http://www.giodo.gov.pl/English/ust_podpis_el.htm Romanian E-commerce […]
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EU row over airline passenger data transmission
The Commission’s secret talks with U.S. authorities on the transmission of air passenger data have caused a heavy clash between EU institutions. The Security spokesperson of the EP conservative fraction, the Austrian Hubert Pirker, announced today his fraction will take the Commission to the European Court of Justice. Since 5 March U.S. authorities have access […]
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Data-retention scandal in Ireland
Ireland has had a secret data retention regime for almost a year, after the Cabinet confidentially instructed telecommunications operators to store traffic information about every phone, fax and mobile call for at least three years. The Irish Data Protection Commissioner Joe Meade revealed this last monday at a forum on data retention. Telcos even used […]
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Dutch interception secrecy
The quantity of police interceptions of telecommunication in the Netherlands is higher than anywhere else in the world, according to the few available official statistics. Government however, tries to maintain secrecy about the exact numbers and the technical specifications of the equipment. Last week, a Freedom-of-Information request by EDRi-member Bits of Freedom for statistics covering […]
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Criticism gone from EP report on safer internet plan
In a remarkable change of heart, rapporteur Bill Newton Dunn removed all criticism from his draft report on the Safer Internet Action Plan (EU Document Number COD/2002/0071). In stead of the original recommendation to discontinue the program because of its complete in-effectiveness, Mr. Newton Dunn (British Liberal) now pleads for an extension of the program. […]
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Critical draft report on Safer Internet Plan
The EU Safer Internet Action Plan, than ran from 1999 to 2002, did not deliver very impressive results, to put it mildly. Rapporteur Bill Newton Dunn (UK Liberal Democrat) from the Parliamentary Committee on Citizen’s Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) wrote a slashing draft report about the request to extend the plan […]
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Microsoft Passport does not comply with European privacy rules
Microsoft has agreed to change its Passport authentication system, after the publication on 29 January of a very critical review by the united EU privacy commissioners. Besides the Microsoft .NET Passport system, the commissioners, united in the so-called Article 29 Working Party, also examined the Liberty Alliance Project. The review concludes with general guidelines for […]
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Rally Members European Parliament against data retention
38 Members of the European Parliament from 7 different political groups have united in their resistance against mandatory data retention. Initiated by Marco Cappato, Italian Radical and former Rapporteur on privacy in the electronic communications, last week the MEP’s presented a strongly worded recommendation to the European Council. Even though the new European Privacy Directive […]
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