Human rights focus missing in the State of the Union 2021 address
On 15 September, the yearly State of the Union 2021 address took place. The address is the event where the European Commission evaluates the preceding year and the Commission President announces key legislation or reactions to crucial international events.
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Human rights focus missing in the State of the Union 2021 address
On 15 September, the yearly State of the Union 2021 address took place. The address is the event where the European Commission evaluates the preceding year and the Commission President announces key legislation or reactions to crucial international events.
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Register research turned privacy disaster. Epicenter.works nominates Sebastian Kurz for a Big Brother Award
Research is important. Using research as a cover to obtain unchecked access to sensitive official data is not. At the beginning of July, the Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, submitted to pre-parliamentary consultation a bill that would cause a seismic shift in how the government treats its citizens’ data. EDRi's member epicenter.works shares that from a privacy perspective the present bill is fundamentally flawed and places an enormous amount of data covering the entire population at risk for abuse.
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EFF to Council of Europe: Flawed Cross Border Police Surveillance Treaty Needs Fixing
EDRi member Electronic Frontier Foundations (EFF) has joined European Digital Rights (EDRi), the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), and other civil society organizations in recommending 20 solid, comprehensive steps to strengthen human rights protections in the new cross border surveillance draft treaty that is under review by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). The recommendations aim to ensure that the draft treaty, which grants broad, intrusive police powers to access user information in criminal cross border investigations, contains a robust baseline to safeguard privacy and data protection.
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EU: €5 million for new wiretapping technologies
The European Commission has made €5 million available for research projects that aim to help law enforcement authorities maintain the ability to intercept telecommunications – something which is threatened by the adoption of new technologies such as 5G networks and “edge computing”.
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UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal finds the regime for bulk communications data to be incompatible with EU law
The UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal issued a declaration in EDRi member Privacy International's challenge to the bulk communications data regime, finding UK legislation to be incompatible with EU law.
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iSpy with my little eye: Apple’s u-turn on privacy sets a precedent and threatens everyone’s security
Apple has just announced significant changes to their privacy settings for messaging and cloud services: first, it will scan all images sent by child accounts; second, it will scan all photos as they are being uploaded to iCloud. With these changes, Apple is threatening everyone’s privacy, security and confidentiality.
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Council of Europe’s Actions Belie its Pledges to Involve Civil Society in Development of Cross Border Police Powers Treaty
As the Council of Europe’s flawed cross border surveillance treaty moves through its final phases of approval, time is running out to ensure cross-border investigations occur with robust privacy and human rights safeguards in place. The treaty’s drafting process has been deeply flawed, with civil society groups, defense attorneys, and even data protection regulators largely sidelined.
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German Big Brother Awards call out top privacy abusers
On Friday, 11 June 2021, the German Big Brother Awards (BBA) gala was held in Bielefeld, Germany. Organised by EDRi member Digitalcourage with jury members and support from several German groups, including other EDRi members, these awards have been held since 2000
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IuRe teams up with journalist to sue the Czech state for mobile phone data collection
The Czech state has been collecting data on the mobile communications of all its citizens. While the content of the communication remains unknown, other types of data are stored for six months through telecommunication operators. The stored data includes information on phone traffic and the locations of the internet connection. However, according to EDRi's member Iuridicum Remedium (IuRe), such large-scale data collection conflicts with European legislation. Therefore, together with investigative journalist Jan Cibulka, it has decided to sue the Czech state and demand an apology for illegal data collection.
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Panoptykon ends campaign against uncontrolled surveillance reaching 3M people
1 out of 5 Poles are aware of the constantly growing powers of the Polish secret service. And this lack of knowledge from the public leaves the door open for further expansion of the powers of secret service authorities.
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The urgent need to #reclaimyourface
The rise of automated video surveillance is often touted as a quick, easy, and efficient solution to complex societal problems. In reality, roll-outs of facial recognition and other biometric mass surveillance tools constitute a systematic invasion into people’s fundamental rights to privacy and data protection. Like with uses of toxic chemicals, these toxic uses of biometric surveillance technologies need to be banned across Europe.
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GDPR: Three years in, and its future and success are still up in the air
The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is not living up to the hype. When first implemented in 2018, the GDPR was presented as the new world standard for privacy and data protection. The law has increased data protection awareness and led to significant legal changes all over the world. Yet EDRi member Access Now’s new report, Three years under the GDPR: An implementation progress report, explores just how far this legislation still has to go before its promises — and potential — are truly fulfilled.
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