======================================================================= EDRi-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 10.14, 18 July 2012 ======================================================================= Contents ======================================================================= 1. Is CETA introducing ACTA through the back door? 2. Russian bill creates blacklist of websites 3. EP: Surprises in the online distribution of audiovisual works' report 4. French Supreme Court: important rulings for intermediary liability 5. German Federal Supreme Court rules in the RapidShare case 6. EC suggests changes of the music rights management system 7. Ireland: E-voting machines go to scrap after proving unreliable 8. Banking blockade on Wikileaks broken by the Icelandic court 9. EP and EDPS hit back against lawless b child protectionb measures 10. Recommended Action 11. Recommended Reading 12. Agenda 13. About ======================================================================= 1. Is CETA introducing ACTA through the back door? ======================================================================= The European Parliament rejected ACTA with a large majority on 4 July 2012, but just one week later the EU is accused of pushing back the rejected agreement through the back door, that is, through CETA, the EUbCanada trade agreement that includes measures similar to ACTA. The negotiations between EU and Canada on the bilateral trade agreement CETA started in November 2009 and will probably be ended by the end of this year. Just like ACTA, the trade deal has been drafted in secret but leaked documents, dated February 2012, have shown parts of ACTA being introduced in this new agreement. CETA will also require the approval of the European Parliament to enter into force. b CETA must be cancelled altogether (or its repressive ACTA parts must be scrapped), or face the same fate as ACTA in the Parliamentb, stated La Quadrature du Net. MEP Nigel Farage drew the attention over the similarities between ACTA and CETA: "If the commission has a glimmer of respect for the voice of the people it would change CETA as soon as possible and stop trying to bring ACTA into legislative life by stealth. ACTA is like a Frankenstein which has been bolted together and keeps on moving. It is dangerous and must be brought to an end immediately," said Farage. Internet activists have already warned over the possibility that ACTA may appear in several draft agreements in order to get through somehow. b To put back the same provisions in a much larger trade agreement will make it more difficult to reject. If CETA is successful, then one would think that the European commission would come back and say 'well, you just passed that, so you cannot object to ACTA'," said Michael Geist, law professor at the University of Ottawa, who uncovered the leaked documents showing that the proposals from ACTA had been included in CETA. The chapter on intellectual property rights is almost identical to ACTA in several instances, including rules on enforcement of intellectual property rights, damages, injunctions, border enforcement, preserving evidence and criminal sanctions, while Article 23 defines all commercial scale copyright infringement as criminal. The Trade Commissioner's spokesman, John Clancy tried to explain on Twitter that the leaked documents were actually a previous version of the agreement drafted before ACTA was rejected by MEPs, and that the agreement draft has since been changed and "no single provision departs from EU law." Joe McNamee from EDRi warned the Commission against using CETA to get parts of ACTA back into place, considering that such attempts would be "hamfisted, politically incompetent and anti-democratic." ACTA Lives: How the EU & Canada Are Using CETA as Backdoor Mechanism To Revive ACTA (9.07.2012) http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6580/135/ ACTA is back, completed with investment protections (10.07.2012) http://acta.ffii.org/?p=1622 EC Says ACTA ISP Provisions Dropped from CETA, Yet Most of ACTA Likely Remains Intact (11.07.2012) http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6584/125/ EU accused of trying to introduce ACTA 'through the back door' (11.07.2012) http://www.theparliament.com/latest-news/article/newsarticle/eu-accused-of-t... Commission set for fresh collision course over ACTA copy-cat clauses (12.07.2012) http://euobserver.com/19/116944 EDRi-member Digitale Gesellschaft - Flyer on CETA (only in German, 17.07.2012) http://digitalegesellschaft.de/2012/07/nach-acta-kommt-ceta/ ======================================================================= 2. Russian bill creates blacklist of websites ======================================================================= At the beginning of July 2012, Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament, approved in third reading a draft law titled b On the Protection of Children From Information Harmful to Their Health and Developmentb, allowing the Russian authorities to create a blacklist with websites deemed to contain b pornography or extremist ideas, or promoting suicide or use of drugs.b The draft law that is meant to amend the present Law of Information raises concerns of filtering and censorship. The owner of a website included directly on the blacklist, without any referring to a court, has to be notified by the hosting provider in 24h and has to delete the data considered offending. Failing to comply, the site must be shut down or deleted by the hosting provider who, in case of non-compliance, may, himself, face cutting off entirely. Those included on the list may appeal to the court in a three-month period. b We suspect that the implementation of this blacklist will open the way to abusive filtering and blocking of online content, with the aim of censoring the Russian opposition and government critics,b stated Reporters Without Borders. The bill originates from the b League for a Safe Internetb, an initiative meant to limit the registry to URLs (excluding DNS filtering and IP blocking), and give a non-governmental organization the authority to manage the list, in order to avoid b excessive state controlb as was explained by the League's director, Denis Davydov. The Duma decided however to expand the registry's reach and the newly created federal body Roskomnadzor (the Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications) will probably be in charge of the matter. The new draft law, compared with Chinabs b Great Firewallb, raises concerns also due to the vagueness of its text especially regarding the Roskomnadzor that would select the targeted sites. The draft also fails to give a precise definition of b harmfulb content and does not clearly articulate precise reasons for a site to be added to the blacklist, which may obviously lead to over-blocking and abuses. The bill specifies what kind of content can lead to introducing a website on the blacklist without court decision: b b&child pornography, as well as information containing propaganda about the use of narcotics, psychotropic drugs, and their precursors, and information compelling children to commit acts that threaten their lives and/or health, including self-harm and suicideb&b Journalist Andrei Babitskii argues that b information compelling children to commit acts that threaten their livesb is an intentionally vague expression that may lead to the inclusion on the list of websites related to any dangerous recreational activities, such as extreme sports. The bill also specifies, in a very vague and imprecise manner, what content needs a court oversight: b Other information not legally disseminated in the Russian Federation on the basis of a court decision recognizing the illegality of the disseminated information.b The Presidential Council on Human Rights made a statement on 3 July giving five precise reasons to reject the bill: the fact that the inclusion of whole domains on the registry (and not only URLs to the deemed illegal materials) may include law-abiding websites, that the bill imposes what is effectively b collective punishmentb against web-operators and providers, that the filtering will slow down the entire RuNet and damage e-commerce and online innovation; that the expanded monitoring will affect individual privacy and that very high costs will be triggered for the acquisition of the blocking and filtration equipment necessary to enforce the law's requirements. In response to the Presidential Council on Human Rights concerns, Davydov offered a hypocritical explanation: b b&if every parent is independently entitled to set limits on Internet access for their own children to protect them from harmful content, then the government, out of concern for its citizens, is entitled and indeed must restrict (access to) illegal contentb&b A coalition of independent Russian journalists has launched an online petition for the withdrawal of this bill. Also, in protest against the draft law, Wikipediabs Russian-language site (ru.wikipedia.org) suspended its operations on 10 July. A bar appeared across Wikipedia logo on the home page and the words: b Imagine a world without free knowledge.b The bill is now to pass through the upper house and ratified by President Vladimir Putin before coming into effect. If anything, current discussions being led by the European Commission are even less transparent. In the absence of a legal basis - in the absence of the European Commission even having an agreed policy on the subject - a "self-regulation" dialogue to "make the Internet a safer Internet for kids" is being run by the Commission including proposals for upload filters, download filters and little or no attempt to explain how these restrictions are considered to be in line with the European Charter and European Convention on Human Rights. Given this approach from the EU, it is unsurprising that Russia has chosen child protection as a tool for the introduction of Internet repression. Freedom of information threatened by website blacklisting and recriminalization of defamation (13.07.2012) http://en.rsf.org/russia-freedom-of-information-threatened-13-07-2012,43019.... Russia: A Great Firewall to Censor the RuNet? (10.07.2012) http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/07/10/russia-a-great-firewall-to-censor-t... EDRi-gram: The rise of the European upload filter (20.06.2012) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.12/the-rise-of-the-european-upload-fil... ======================================================================= 3. EP: Surprises in the online distribution of audiovisual works' report ======================================================================= On 10 July 2012, the Culture and Education (CULT) Committee in the European Parliament (EP) voted on the own initiative report of Jean-Marie Cavada (EPP, France) on the online distribution of audiovisual content. The own initiative report follows the Green Paper from the European Commission dated 13 July 2011 and the public consultation that closed in November 2011 (for which the result is not yet available). Mr Cavadabs draft report contained a paragraph calling for consideration of b how to block access to pay platforms offering unauthorised services.b This provision was removed by Mr Cavada as a result of widespread opposition. This removal is welcome as the Committee has consistently rejected blocking a way of combating the dissemination of platforms offering unauthorised services. As good news never comes without bad news (or at least not as often as we would wish for...), the report contained a very surprising paragraph on the liability of network operators. The additional paragraph (amendment 147) that was voted, was proposed by the Mr. Cavada. It b calls on the Commission to consider ways (...) reverse the current trend of removing responsibility from these operators regarding consumer protection, implementation of intellectual property and ensuring Internet privacyb. The adoption of this text is surprising for at least three reasons. Firstly, it is factually not true that there is a trend that diminishes the responsibility of network operators. The rules concerning the responsibility and liability of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are provided by the e-Commerce Directive in Articles 12 to 15 and have been in place since 2001. The only discernible trend has been in the opposite direction, as courts in some EU Member States have been making rulings that have narrowly interpreted ISP liability provisions Secondly, the risk is really high that this provision could be understood as promoting privatised censorship in exactly the way that was suggested by ACTA., As liability increases, it is logical that ISPs will be willing to avoid legal problems by b voluntarilyb enforcing copyright legislation outside the rule of law. This will lead to privatised enforcement at the detriment of fundamental rights such as freedom of expression, the right to privacy but also the freedom to conduct business. Finally, the role of the whole initiative was to encourage the development of new legal offers and to improve the access to content for users b it is a symptom of a broader problem that, even when the policy is so positive, the reflex is to fall back on repressive measures as the only solution. During the discussions of this dossier in Parliament, the online distribution of audiovisual worksb report has raised lots of attention and the number of amendments proposed for an own-initiative report shows that the subject creates a huge amount of controversy. The attention brought on the report need to be looked at in the larger debate on copyright. The final version of the Report is not available yet. Amendment 147 in the Report http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/commissions/cult/amendments/2012/48767... Directive on electronic commerce 2000/31/EC http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32000L0031:EN:HT... (Contribution by Marie Humeau - EDRi) ======================================================================= 4. French Supreme Court: Important rulings for intermediary liability ======================================================================= On 12 July 2012 the French Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation) issued four important and somewhat contradictory rulings regarding the role of online service providers in policing online copyright infringements. In the first case, SNEP vs. Google France, the Court's decision could lead the search engine to censor its autocomplete feature which automatically suggests commonly-used terms associated with the queries submitted by users. The French phonographic industry lobby (SNEP) had sued Google for providing the suggestions b Torrentb, b Megaupload" and b Rapidshareb when users typed the names of artists or music bands in the Google search bar. Both the Court of First Instance and the Appellate Court had rejected SNEP's demands that Google stop suggesting the names of these online services. They insisted that the latter were not illegal in themselves, even though they could be used to infringe copyright. As a consequence, they claimed that SNEP's rights were not affected by Google's service, and that the company could not be held liable for such b potentially infringing usesb, nor be forced to censor its automatic suggestions. But the Supreme Court overturned these rulings, rejecting the lower courts' legal reasoning. The judges held that Google's autocomplete feature actually b provided the means to infringe copyright and related rightsb, and that the measures required by SNEP, while not being totally effective, could in fact b prevent or terminate such infringementsb. The case is now referred back to a lower court to be judged once again. Interestingly, this ruling comes six months after Google decided to voluntarily remove "Rapidshare", "uTorrent" and "MegaUpload" from its Google Suggest service. However, according to the SNEP's executive director, David El Sayegh, Google must do more in the fight against file-sharing. b This ruling demonstrates that search engines must participate in the regulation of the Internetb, said El Sayegh. As a result of this decision, Google will be under increased pressure to come to a settlement with rights-holders organisations. In three other separate but similar rulings, the Supreme Court upheld the rights of Internet users and service providers against the right-holders' claims. The Court's decisions in these cases mark the end of b notice and staydownb injunctions in France, which were becoming increasingly popular in Court rooms. In all three cases, the appeal court had ruled that Google did not adopt adequate measures to prevent the re-indexation of videos or images that rights-holders had previously notified as infringing and which Google had then promptly removed. Such rulings would have eventually forced Google to monitor its users' activities and filter-out uploaded content, so as to prevent any of its users from publishing content that has already been notified and taken-down (hence the term b notice and staydownb, as opposed to the traditional b notice and takedownb regime). Through its decision, the Supreme Court rejected the notion that online service providers are under the obligation to prevent any future infringements. According to the Court, the three appellate rulings violated EU and French law by imposing b a general obligation to monitorb the content that Google stores, as well as to actively b seek illicit uploadsb. These decisions would have led Google to implement a b blocking mechanism with no limitation in timeb, which would be b disproportionate to the pursued aimb, the Court said. Whereas the EU Court of Justice recently rejected blocking measures based on five cumulative criteria in the Netlog vs. SABAM case, the French Court deems that the b no limitation is timeb criterion is enough to qualify blocking measures as disproportionate. These rulings against b notice-and-staydownb will bring clarity to the ongoing debate on the future of the EU e-commerce directive and the dangers of blocking measures. However, when considered together with the decision on Google's autocomplete feature, this mounting case law will unfortunately encourage rights-holders to keep on pushing for closer b cooperationb of online service providers in copyright enforcement, thereby leading to privatised censorship schemes. French Supreme Court decision - SNEP vs. Google France (only in French, 12.07.2012) http://www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/premiere_chambre_civile_568/83... French Supreme Court decisions - Bac Films vs. Google France and Inc (1 & 2) (only in French, 12.07.2012) http://www.dalloz-actualite.fr/document/civ-1re-12-juill-2012-fs-pbi-n-11-13... http://www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/premiere_chambre_civile_568/83... French Supreme Court - AndrC) Rau vs. Google & AuFeminin.com (only in French, 12.07.2012) http://www.dalloz-actualite.fr/document/civ-1re-12-juill-2012-fs-pbi-n-11-15... France: Google may have to censor for piracy after all (16.07.2012) http://gigaom.com/europe/france-google-may-have-to-censor-for-piracy-after-a... Music: Google's suggestions (once again) in front of the judges (only in French, 13.07.2012) http://www.ecrans.fr/Google-et-l-industrie-musicale-de,15038.html The Supreme Court opposes content blocking by hosting companies (in French only, 18.07.2012) http://www.dalloz-actualite.fr/essentiel/cour-de-cassation-fait-obstruction-... (contribution by FC)lix TrC)guer - EDRi-observer La Quadrature du Net) ======================================================================= 5. German Federal Supreme Court rules in the RapidShare case ======================================================================= A file-hosting site could be partially liable for the content uploaded by others in Germany. In a case brought to court by video games company Atari which accused file-sharing site RapidShare of unlawfully providing access to one of its games, the German Federal Supreme Court decided on 12 July 2012 in favour of the plaintiff. Despite the fact that, when notified, RapidShare deleted the files in question, Atari was not satisfied and required the inclusion of a filter and other measures to prevent illegal uploading of copyrighted material. The first ruling of the District Court was also in favour of the plaintiff but the Higher Regional Court of DC<sseldorf dismissed the action at the appeal, considering that RapidShare had already taken enough measures against copyright infringement and accepting the argument that it was impossible to check all files loaded on the site. But Atari went further on and appealed to the German Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof - BGH), which has now ruled that file-hosting services can be held liable for secondary copyright infringements under certain conditions. BGH said that file-hosters did not generally have to monitor uploads from their users, but that they might have to take measures once they have been notified of a specific infringement issue. In this case, RapidShare had to take all b technically and economically reasonable precautionsb to prevent the uploading of Ataribs game. RapidShare will also have to browse its entire file collection to detect and delete pirated content, and to monitor a b manageable numberb of third-party sites that offer link collections of content available on RapidShare to check out whether they are not indexing a copy of Atari game and if so, to delete it from its servers. Failing to carry out these provisions, the service provider would be liable for damages. The BGH however included a clause that anti-piracy measures had to be within reasonable limits. The case is now back to the Higher Regional Court in DC<sseldorf which has to decide what constitutes "reasonable limits". RapidShare stated it had already b developed a crawling technology that is constantly watching Internet forums, message boards and warez blogs for information about copyright infringement taking place on our system.b RapidShare attorney Daniel Raimer said for TorrentFreak: b Webre doing more than any provider in the industry to police our site and third-party sites to ensure that legitimate intellectual property rights are protected and that wrongdoers are denied access to our services. Yesterdaybs decision was a temporary setback. We remain confident that the Higher Regional Court DC<sseldorf will ultimately rule in our favour as it has in the past.b Press release of the court (only in German, 12.07.2012) http://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bgh&Art=pm&Datum=2012&Sort=3&nr=60931&pos=0&anz=113 Supreme Court: RapidShare Liable For Copyright Infringement b Sometimes (14.07.2012) http://torrentfreak.com/supreme-court-rapidshare-liable-for-copyright-infrin... File-hosting firms 'responsible for pirated content', German court rules (16.07.2012) http://www.zdnet.com/file-hosting-firms-responsible-for-pirated-content-germ... German Federal Supreme Court on file hoster responsibility for third party content b b Rapidshareb (13.07.2012) http://germanitlaw.com/?p=683 EDRi-gram: RapidShare wins another alleged copyright infringement case (12.01.2011) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number9.1/rapidshare-infringement-germany-case ======================================================================= 6. EC suggests changes of the music rights management system ======================================================================= The European Commission (EC) published a draft EU Directive on 11 July 2012 showing the intention to introduce a system of collective rights management to be used for the distribution of music online in the single market. In the ECbs opinion, the collecting societies can issue a licence for the Internet use of a songwriter or composer's work, but some only do so for one country. Further more the collective societies have not adapted to the present shift to the digital age while b music pirates seize the opportunities that the online world offersb. b I propose establishing an effective online single market for music by establishing new, common rules for two interlinked areas b management and online licensing across borders (.....) Firstly, I want to establish rules of efficiency and transparency in collecting societies, so that artists and producers will have more say, and an improved stream of revenue,b said Single market commissioner Michael Barnier. Another proposal in the draft Directive is to make online licensing across borders easier for collecting societies that manage the rights of songwriters and composers. Collecting societies have also to ensure they are "diligent in the collection and the management of rights revenue" and that they carry out "distribution and payments accurately, ensuring equal treatment of all categories of rights holders." The draft Directive says that societies have to publish yearly accounts, pass on royalties to the copyright owners in 12 month time at the most. They also have to give artists a role in management decisions and the right to choose which agency represents them in a certain country. The directive is now to be discussed by government ministers and the European Parliament's Legal Affairs committee. Moving the single market for online music (11.07.2012) http://euobserver.com/7/116931 EU targets b,6-bn-a-year artists' royalties business (11.07.2012) http://euobserver.com/19/116940 Radiohead join attack on new EU copyright rules (12.07.2012) http://euobserver.com/871/116961 EU aims to bring music collecting societies into line (12.07.2012) http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php/copyright-business/782-eu-aims-to-bring-m... EU proposes greater transparency and stricter governance for collecting societies (11.07.2012) http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2012/july/eu-proposes-greater-transparenc... ======================================================================= 7. Ireland: E-voting machines go to scrap after proving unreliable ======================================================================= The e-voting machines that were bought by the Irish Government in 2002 and which were supposed to be used for all elections are now being sold for almost nothing as scrap. The e-voting system was given up two years after the machines have failed to prove safe from tampering and had no possibility to have a paper print for a double check of the results. In 2006, the Commission on Electronic Voting, on a second report on the e-voting system, recommended the use of the system provided additional work was done to improve the system. The recommendations included the addition of a voter verified audit trail, the replacement of the election management software with a version that is developed to mission critical standards, the modification of the embedded software & the machine and the rectification of the identified security vulnerabilities. As these conditions have never been met, the Irish Government is now in the position of ending up an embarrassing story that has brought a large cost to the Irish citizens. The machines that had cost 51 million Euro in 2002 are now sold for 70000 Euro the entire lot. The storage for several years also costed some additional 3.2 million Euro for their storage. "I am glad to bring this sorry episode to a conclusion on behalf of the taxpayer. From the outset, this project was ill-conceived and poorly planned by my predecessors and as a result it has cost the taxpayer some b,55m,b said Environment Minister Phil Hogan. b,54m voting machines scrapped for b,9 each (29.06.2012) http://www.independent.ie/national-news/54m-voting-machines-scrapped-for-9-e... Electronic voting in Ireland http://evoting.cs.may.ie/ EDRi-gram: Critical report on Irish e-voting system released (12.07.2006) http://edri.org/edrigram/number4.14/evotingireland ======================================================================= 8. Banking blockade on Wikileaks broken by the Icelandic court ======================================================================= An Icelandic court has made a step towards unblocking funds towards WikiLeaks by recently ruling that Valitor, the local agent for Visa, broke the contract when it stopped accepting donations for the website a year ago. The ban was the result of a blocking campaign started in December 2010 against WikiLeaks through Visa, Mastercard, Western Union, Bank of America and PayPal following the US State Department cable leaks in 2010, revealing U.S. war crimes and statecraft. According to the company, the blocking has led to a 95% decrease in its revenue. b If this financial attack stands unchallenged, a dangerous, oppressive and undemocratic precedent will have been set, the implications of which go far beyond WikiLeaks and its work. Any organization that falls foul of powerful finance companies or their political allies can expect similar extrajudicial action. Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and other international NGOs that work to expose the wrongdoing of powerful players risk the same fate as WikiLeaks,b is WikiLeaksb statement. The blockade against WikiLeaks has also been criticized by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as well as by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression. WikiLeaks has initiated legal actions against the financial entities, using all its remaining financial resources to fight them in court. Also, in July 2011, a preliminary investigation of the blockade was started by the European Commission. "Economic censorship is censorship. It is wrong. When it's done outside of the rule of law it's doubly wrong. One by one those involved in the attempted censorship of WikiLeaks will find themselves on the wrong side of history," stated WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. According to the decision, Valitor has 14 days to restart processing the payments to WikiLeaks. Failing to do so will bring forth about 5 000 Euro/day in fines. Valitor will probably appeal the decision. WikiLeaks has placed an anti-trust complaint at the European Commission and a Commission decision on whether to pursue the financial services companies involved in the blockade is expected before this Autumn. WikiWin: Icelandic court orders Visa to process WikiLeaks $$$ - Financial ban lifted in Assange victory (13.07.2012) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/13/wikileaks_visa_victory/ Wikeleaks Press Release: Victory in the first court case in the fight against the imfamous Wikileaks banking blockade. (12.07.2012) http://www.twitlonger.com/show/I9T68S Wikileaks page on Banking Blockade http://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade EDRi-gram: Rule of law in the hands of private companies.Wikileaks is just the start (15.12.2010) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.24/wikileaks-rule-of-law-private-compan... ======================================================================= 9. ENDitorial: EP and EDPS hit back against lawless b child protectionb measures ======================================================================= In the EDRi-gram 10.12, we reported on projects of the European Commission to coerce industry into the introduction of b voluntaryb upload filters. Following the Scarlet/Sabam case in the European Court of Justice, such filtering would constitute a restriction on fundamental rights and, if proportionate, would need a legal basis in order to be in compliance with the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. Now, thankfully, the European Commission's apparent willingness to simply ignore legal safeguards appears to be running up against increasing opposition. The Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament last week adopted its Opinion on b Protecting Children in the Digital World.b Within the context of that Opinion, a compromise text was adopted with the support of all political groups. Referring to actions by industry, parliamentarians stressed that b any such measures should fully respect the rule of law and legal certainty, take into account the rights of end users and comply with existing legal and judicial procedures and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.b The European Data Protection Supervisor has also this week issued an opinion on the same initiative. Taking a similar line to the Civil Liberties Committee, the EDPS stresses the need to adequately implement the general and the telecommunications-specific data protection Directives as well as the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Interestingly, the EDPS pointedly does not only refer to measures implemented by the European Commission but also that stresses that b all measures to be deployed further to the Communication should be consistent with this framework.b This statement is clearly meant to cover b voluntaryb measures which the Commission manages to persuade industry to implement. The position of the European Commission on measures adopted as a result of projects that it either runs or finances is far from clear. Frequently, it facilitates and directs discussions that lead to quasi-regulatory or policing measures being introduced by industry, without taking any political or legal ownership of them. It seems legally, morally and practically questionable for the European Commission to push industry to b voluntarilyb implement legally dubious policies, particularly when these do not reflect official Commission policy. On 3 May 2010, the current College of Commissioners was the first one to adopt individual and personal oaths to uphold the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. Commission Communication on a b Better Internet for Childrenb (2.05.2012) http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2012:0196:FIN:EN:P... EP Civil Liberties Committee Opinion Not yet online EDPS Opinion on the Communication from the Commission - "European Strategy for a Better Internet for Children" (17.07.2012) http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/Consul... Digital Agenda: Coalition of top tech & media companies to make internet better place for our kids (1.12.2011) http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/1485&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en EDRi-gram: The rise of the European upload filter (20.06.2012) http://edri.org/edrigram/number10.12/the-rise-of-the-european-upload-filter (Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi) ======================================================================= 10. Recommended Action ======================================================================= Pledge for supporting EDRi (only in German) Deadline: 30 September 2012 http://www.pledgebank.com/support-edri ======================================================================= 11. Recommended Reading ======================================================================= Article 29 Working Party opinion on cloud computing (1.07.2012) http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/article-29/documentation/opinion... Bee stings killed as many in UK as terrorists, says watchdog (28.06.2012) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9359763/Bee-sting... ======================================================================= 12. Agenda ======================================================================= 25-26 August 2012, Bonn, Germany Free and Open Source software conference (FrOSCon) http://www.froscon.de/en/program/call-for-papers/ 6-7 September 2012, Cluj-Napoca, Romania CONSENT policy conference: Perceptions, Privacy and Permissions: the role of consent in on-line services http://conference.ubbcluj.ro/consent/ 8-9 September 2012, Vienna, Austria Daten, Netz & Politik 2012 Call for Contributions Deadline: 22 July 2012 https://dnp12.unwatched.org/ 12-14 September 2012, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium Building Institutions for Sustainable Scientific, Cultural and Genetic Resources Commons. http://biogov.uclouvain.be/iasc/index.php 14-17 September 2012, Brussels, Belgium Freedom not Fear 2012 http://www.freedomnotfear.org/ http://www.freedom-not-fear.eu 7-10 October 2012, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2012 Amsterdam Privacy Conference http://www.apc2012.org/ 25-28 October 2012, Barcelona, Spain Free Culture Forum 2012 http://fcforum.net/ 6-9 November 2012, Baku, Azerbaijan Seventh Annual IGF Meeting: "Internet Governance for Sustainable Human, Economic and Social Development" http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/ 9-11 November 2012, Fulda, Germany Digitalisierte Gesellschaft - Wege und Irrwege FIfF Annual Conference in cooperation with Fuldaer Informatik Kollquium http://www.fiff.de/2012 ============================================================ 13. About ============================================================ EDRi-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRi has 32 members based or with offices in 20 different countries in Europe. European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the EDRi-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and are visible on the EDRi website. Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram@edri.org> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation. http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring http://flattr.com/thing/417077/edri-on-Flattr - EDRI-gram subscription information subscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request@edri.org Subject: subscribe You will receive an automated e-mail asking to confirm your request. Unsubscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request@edri.org Subject: unsubscribe - EDRI-gram in Macedonian EDRI-gram is also available partly in Macedonian, with delay. Translations are provided by Metamorphosis http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/mk/vesti/edri - EDRI-gram in German EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided by Andreas Krisch from the EDRI-member VIBE!AT - Austrian Association for Internet Users http://www.unwatched.org/ - Newsletter archive Back issues are available at: http://www.edri.org/edrigram - Help Please ask <edrigram@edri.org> if you have any problems with subscribing or unsubscribing. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE