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EDRi-gram
biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe
Number 8.5, 10 March 2010
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Contents
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1. German Federal Constitutional Court rejects data retention law
2. EDRi sends open letter to EU Commissioners to oppose Internet blocking
3. ECJ: The Data Protection Authorities need to be completely independent
4. UK Government to decide on the Internet disconnections and web blocking
5. PNR agreements with US and Australia on the European Parliament's Agenda
6. French Constitutional Court: No to police access to private space CCTV
7. Article 29: Reduce the storing period of Google Street View's images
8. Survey on Chip implants in Germany
9. Declaration on Safer Internet proposed in the Macedonian Parliament
10. ENDitorial: ACTA, the Euro Parliament resolution and political clarity
11. Recommended Action
12. Recommended Reading
13. Agenda
14. About
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1. German Federal Constitutional Court rejects data retention law
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The German Federal Constitutional Court rejected on 2 March 2010 the
legislation requiring electronic communications traffic data retention for a
period of 6 months.
The legislation on data retention, implementing the similar EU Directive,
was passed by the Bundestag on 9 November 2007 and entered into force on 1
January 2008. On 31 December 2007, a constitutional complaint was brought to
the Federal Constitutional Court by 35 000 citizens (the largest number of
plaintiffs ever involved in a case) at the initiative of the German privacy
group AK Vorrat (Working group on data retention), one the plaintiffs being
the present Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.
The court judges considered that the data storage was not secure enough,
that it was not clear what it would be used for and that it could "cause a
diffusely threatening feeling of being under observation that can diminish
an unprejudiced perception of one's basic rights in many areas," as stated
the president of the court, Hans-J|rgen Papier. They considered that "such
retention represents an especially grave intrusion" into citizens' privacy.
The court did not annul the legislation entirely but suspended it, asking
for the immediate deletion of the data already collected and for the massive
modification of the law in order to provide stricter conditions for to the
use and storage of the data. According to the decision, the data should be
encoded and there should be "transparent control" of the information usage.
The ruling also stated that the data usage control process should involve
the government's Commissioner for data protection and freedom of information
and that the secret use of data should be possible only in individual cases
and ordered by the court.
Following the court's ruling, the German Working group on Data Retention
made a list of five demands that basically ask from the Federal Government
to cooperate with other states and bodies to repeal the EU data retention
directive, to never re-enact the German data retention law and to refuse
data collection on innocent citizens such as air travellers data.
The group believes that "European citizens should be given the right to file
constitutional complaints directly with the European Court of Justice" and
that all existing "security" measures should be reviewed by an independent
body in order to "systematically examine their compatibility with our
fundamental rights, their effectiveness, their cost, their harmful
side-effects and alternatives."
After Germany's and Romania's unconstitutionality decisions and after other
EU members countries have not succeed in implementing the directive, the
Working Group publicly announced it would continue the efforts to persuade
the EU "to repeal its data retention directive".
Class-action law suit against data retention (5.03.2010)
http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/51/1/lang,en/
Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung Press Conference - Constitutional
complaint filed against German Telecomms Data Retention Act (31.12.2007)
http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/184/79/lang,en/
German High Court Limits Phone and E-Mail Data Storage (2.03.2010)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,681251,00.html
German court strikes blow against EU data-retention regime (3.03.2010)
http://euobserver.com/9/29595
Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court (only in German, 2.03.2010)
http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/pressemitteilungen/bvg10-011
EDRi-gram: German Constitutional Court held hearing on data retention
(16.12.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number7.24/german-constitutional-court-hearing-...
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2. EDRi sends open letter to EU Commissioners to oppose Internet blocking
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EDRi's letter was sent to Commissioners Cecilia Malmstrvm (Home Affairs),
Viviane Reding (Justice and Fundamental Rights) and Neelie Kroes (Digital
Agenda).
The letter congratulates the Commissioners for their nominations and
approval in their new portfolios. It welcomes the positive statements made
by all three Commissioners on the need to respect fundamental rights and to
insist that legislation is "evidence based". EDRi warns in the letter that
the nature of the arguments surrounding Internet blocking is such that this
positive approach will be under pressure right from the start, due to the
pending re-launch of the "Proposal for a Council Framework Decision on
combating the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child
pornography, repealing Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA". That proposal, when
originally launched in 2009, contained the populist, but profoundly flawed
suggestion that Internet access providers be required to "block" access to
illegal websites.
The issue at stake - child exploitation and child abuse images published
online - is too serious to have policy based on headlines rather than
effectiveness. As a result, EDRi's letter stated that, in order to develop
an effective strategy, a thorough and diligent analysis needs to be done.
Such an analysis would consider:
- The nature of the problem being tackled;
The proposal seeks to address illegal websites. These sites are almost all
based in the territories of the EU's major trading partners. As a result, it
is clearly inappropriate to adopt a strategy of blocking, which leaves the
material online, criminals uninvestigated and victims unidentified.
- The legality of the measure being proposed;
Research undertaken by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) and a team of experts funded by the Open Society Institute in
the last twelve months have highlighted major legal questions about the
legality of imposing blocking obligations on Internet access providers or
coercing them into this activity.
- The scope, scale and nature of possible unintended consequences;
Internet blocking creates several dangers simultaneously. On the one hand,
by creating the illusion of activity in the area of online child abuse
websites, political pressure will be reduced and real international action
to deal with the problem properly will become even less likely than it
currently is. Secondly, as is obvious from the recent plague of orders in
the EU to block (sometimes perfectly legal) gambling websites, once blocking
is introduced, it will be used for more and more purposes. Thirdly, as
current blocking technologies work very badly, there will be more and more
calls for increasingly intrusive technologies to be employed to provide more
effective blocking. Finally, more efficient blocking technologies will also
be more effective at permitting Internet access providers to discriminate
between the amount of access offered to different online resources, creating
a non-neutral Internet, to the detriment of European consumers and to
European innovation.
- The availability of less intrusive measures.
The EU's strategy of hotlines and "notice and takedown" needs to be rolled
out internationally. This approach has been proven to work for the type of
material being addressed in this context. Furthermore, it is time, at last,
to fully respect the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, particularly
with regard to the obligation on states party to take "all appropriate
national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent the exploitative
use of children in pornographic performances and materials." Finally, the
European Financial Coalition on Child Pornography must be rescued from its
inertia and paralysis, restrict itself to undertaking the same activities as
its US counterparts (and not, for example "developing a framework to
circumvent data protection regulations, bank secrecy codes, criminal
legislation and contract law across the EU" as reported in one newspaper).
EDRi stressed, however, that
"industry "self-regulation" should never be used in a way which circumvents
legal protections, democratic decision-making or places private business
priorities ahead of those established by democratically-elected
governments".
The European Commission plans to re-launch the legislative proposal at the
end of March.
Banks urged to expose child porn money trails (9.11.2008)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/09/child-porn-money-trials
EDRi's letter to the European Commission:
http://www.edri.org/files/edri_open_letter.pdf
Proposal for a Council Framework Decision on combating the sexual abuse,
sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, repealing Framework
Decision 2004/68/JHA
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52009PC0135:EN:N...
Impact assessment to a Proposal for a Council Framework Decision on
combating the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child
pornography, repealing Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA (25.03.2009)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=SEC:2009:0355:FIN:EN:P...
Report of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media on Turkey and
Internet Censorship
http://www.osce.org/documents/rfm/2010/01/42294_en.pdf
OSI-funded research: Internet blocking balancing cybercrime responses in
democratic societies - Executive summary (10.2009)
http://www.aconite.com/sites/default/files/Internet_Blocking_and_Democracy_E...
OSI-funded research: Internet blocking balancing cybercrime responses in
democratic societies - Full report (10.2009)
http://www.aconite.com/sites/default/files/Internet_blocking_and_Democracy.p...
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3. ECJ: The Data Protection Authorities need to be completely independent
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A European Court of Justice (ECJ) decision made public on 9 March 2010 in
the case of the European Commission vs. Germany rules that the Data
Protection Authorities (DPAs) established in accordance with the Data
Protection Directive 95/46 needs to be completely independent.
In this case the German regional DPAs were considered as not independent,
since they are part of the regional administration and subject to State
scrutiny.
The ECJ decision explained that "the supervisory authorities provided for in
Article 28 of Directive 95/46 are therefore the guardians of those
fundamental rights and freedoms, and their existence in the Member States is
considered, as is stated in the 62nd recital in the preamble to Directive
95/46, as an essential component of the protection of individuals with
regard to the processing of personal data."
On the scope of the requirements of independence of the supervisory
authorities the court concluded that these authorities "must enjoy an
independence allowing them to perform their duties free from external
influence. That independence precludes not only any influence exercised by
the supervised bodies, but also any directions or any other external
influence, whether direct or indirect, which could call into question the
performance by those authorities of their task consisting of establishing a
fair balance between the protection of the right to private life and the
free movement of personal data."
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) who supported the
European Commission's case in front of the ECJ was pleased with the
judgement.
"The judgement of the Court is of great importance. It strengthens and
clarifies the position of data protection authorities as part of the
fundamental right to data protection. This judgement is relevant for all
supervisory authorities in all EU Member States" said the EDPS.
The European Commission started in 2005 an infringement procedure against
Germany and Austria for not having created an adequate independence of the
Data Protection Authorities.
ECJ Decision in Case 518/07 - European Commission vs. Germany (9.03.2010)
http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=en&numaff=C-518%2F07+&Submit=Submit
EDPS welcomes Court of Justice's ruling strengthening independent position
of data protection authorities (9.03.2010)
http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/EDPS/P...
EDRi-gram: EC: data protection inadequate in Austria and Germany
(24.08.2005)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.17/DPA
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4. UK Government to decide on the Internet disconnections and web blocking
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Discussions continue in the House of Lords over the controversial Digital
Economy Bill especially over Internet disconnections (or account suspension,
as the UK Government is calling it now) and web blocking.
The draft law would give the power to the secretary of state at the
Government Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS) and not to
the Parliament to decide upon the maximum period of account suspension
for people found guilty of illegal file sharing.
Following the strong opposition against the disconnection of alleged illegal
file sharers, the Government stated that it would apply only a "temporary
suspension" of the Internet accounts. "We will not terminate the accounts of
infringers ... (but) ... We added account suspension to the list of possible
technical measures which might be considered." DBIS argues that "temporary
suspension can't effectively mean termination of an internet connection".
However, there is no clear definition in the bill to what "temporary" means.
As a response to an e-petition posted on Number 10 website and closed on 23
February 2010 asking for the abandonment of the plans to " ban individuals
from the internet based on their use of peer to peer file sharing", the
government says: "We will not terminate the accounts of infringers - it is
very hard to see how this could be deemed proportionate except in the most
extreme - and therefore probably criminal - cases."
"It is still the case that on the say-so of record labels and film studios
people will have their internet connections suspended (i.e. disconnected).
All that the Government seems to be saying is that permanent disconnection
will be reserved for the very worst offenders. But they have been saying
that since day one. There is no change," commented ISP TalkTalk.
A worrying situation occurred following the submission by the Liberal
Democrats and Tories of an amendment against Clause 17 pushed by the
Labourists as a means to "future proof" copyright against infringement. In
spite of the warnings of the EDRi-member Open Rights Group, Consumer Focus
and others, the amendment introduced by Liberal Democrats and Tories, which
is even worse and more threatening, was passed by the House of Lords on 4
March on second reading.
Answering to the appeal made by the Open Rights Group, Lord Tim
Clement-Jones, one of the peers having introduced the amendment, argued that
the amendment (called amendment 120A) would enable the High Court to grant
an injunction requiring ISPs to block access to websites accused of hosting
a "substantial" amount of copyright infringing material. He stated that the
intention was to apply the injunction only to sites "where there is a
substantial proportion of infringing material that is either hosted by that
particular site or is accessed through the particular site in question."
The amendment faced opposition even from within the Liberal Democrat Party.
ISPA, the association of UK ISPs, considers the amendment "misjudged and
disproportionate" and Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights
Group believes that "this would open the door to a massive imbalance of
power in favour of large copyright holding companies. (...) Individuals and
small businesses would be open to massive 'copyright attacks' that could
shut them down, just by the threat of action."
The Bill is still to go through a third reading in the House of Lords and
then two readings, a committee stage, a report stage and a final reading in
the House of Commons.
Mandelson could decide length of internet suspensions for filesharers
(23.02.2010)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/23/mandelson-decide-internet-s...
Plans to cut off internet connections of illegal filesharers dumped
(22.02.2010)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/22/plans-cut-off-connections-i...
Confirmed: Lib Dems and Conservatives force web blocking into the Digital
Economy Bill (3.03.2010)
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2010/confirmed-web-blocking-in-digital-e...
Lord Clement-Jones on the Digital Economy Bill: web blocking amendment
(3.03.2010)
http://www.libdemvoice.org/digital-economy-bill-web-blocking-lib-dems-18165....
New amendment gives copyright owners a blank cheque for web censorship
(4.03.2010)
http://www.francisdavey.co.uk/2010/03/new-amendment-gives-copyright-owners.h...
ISPA Outraged by Amendment on Network Level Blocking to Digital Economy Bill
(3.03.2010)
http://www.ispa.org.uk/press_office/page_767_a39a1f17a5a4b823db3ba7b947f1183...
Lords copyright change 'could block YouTube' (4.03.2010)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/04/lords-digital-economy-bill
EDRi-gram: Three strikes plans in UK (4.11.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number7.21/three-strikes-uk
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5. PNR agreements with US and Australia on the European Parliament's Agenda
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The European Parliament (EP) has discussed last week the PNR (Passenger Name
Records) agreements with the US and Australia.
MEP Sophie In't Veld (ALDE, Netherlands) explained that the Parliament
has traditionally been more opposed to PNR agreements than to SWIFT. She
said that it would be inappropriate to give the Parliament an
option only to say "yes" or "no" to the proposal. As the EP previously took
the identical EU-US PNR agreement to the European Court of Justice, it would
be illogical to say "yes" while saying "no" would cause problems for air
carriers and would negate whatever purposes the system might be used
for.
"The PNR case is more complicated", she said, since "the consequences will
be much more serious": the flow of data will have to stop if there is a no
vote. In addition, "the provision of PNR data is part of the conditions the
United States have imposed in exchange for a derogation from the visa
regime."
The Civil Liberties Committee has suggested postponing their vote on the
matter so that a board PNR agreement may be constructed that should meet the
Parliament's demands regarding data protection.
The Commission could develop a new mandate and, possibly in April this
year, the Parliament could establish its minimum requirements for such an
agreement. This approach could cover deals with the US, Australia and other
third countries and establish the basis for an internal EU PNR. Minimum
requirements which the Parliament should consider include purpose
limitation, legal status of agreements, adequate data protection and storage
periods.
The Council representative said it was up to the Commission to draft a
proposal. The Commission doubted the time frame suggested by In't Veld,
saying that it could take until Autumn for such a draft to be ready and
approved by the European Parliament.
The US is very unhappy with the proposal of the LIBE committee and sent Mary
Ellen Callahan, Chief Privacy Officer at the US Homeland Security Department
to have discussions in the European Parliament. She pointed out that the PNR
was very effective in fighting terror, making reference to a report from
February 2010 claiming that the US Customs and Border Protection Department
complied with the US-EU Data Sharing Deal.
She also added that the "PNR was useful in detecting one third of the
potential terrorists the US identified last year."
The European Parliament has the possibility to reject the PNR agreement,
as it happened in the SWIFT case. In fact some MEPs also warned the EU
Council: "If you act as if there had been no SWIFT, this would not be proper
cooperation. But I am glad to see the Commission is negotiating a shift of
position and I hope the Council will move in the same direction", said
Jan-Philipp Albrecht (Greens-EFA, Germany).
MEPs want rules on PNR data transfers to non-EU states (5.03.2010)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/008-69752-060-03-10...
Meeting Agenda - LIBE Committee
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/organes/libe/libe_20100304_...
US seeks to persuade EU deputies to back terror data deal (8.03.2010)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100308/pl_afp/euusattacksdata
Counter-terrorism agreements: MEPs up pressure on passenger data (5.03.2010)
http://www.europolitics.info/europolitics/counter-terrorism-agreements-meps-...
EDRi-gram: DHS Report shows lack of compliance with the EU-US PNR agreement
(14.01.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.1/pnr-dhs-report
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6. French Constitutional Court: No to police access to private space CCTV
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On 25 February 2010, the French Constitutional Council gave its decision on
the appeal made by a group of more than 60 senators and 60 deputies against
the law reinforcing the fight against gang violence and the protection of
people under public service missions.
The appeal was referring to three articles of the law. The council decided
that two of the articles under question, art 1 and art.13 respectively, were
constitutional and therefore ruled against the appeal in their case.
Article 1 introduces in the French Penal Code a new crime which is the
participation in a gang with the intention to commit violent acts.
Article 13 introduces in the Penal Code provisions related to repressing the
intrusion of non-authorised people and the introduction of weapons into an
educational establishment.
The Council decided that article 5 which was allowing the transmission to
the police of images obtained by video-surveillance systems in non-public
spaces of a building in case of "events and situations susceptible of
needing police intervention" was not constitutional and therefore ruled
against it.
The Council considered that the text did not provide for an appropriate
protection of residents' privacy and that the legislator did not succeed in
creating a proper balance between the respect of private life and other
constitutional requirements such as the search of criminals and the
prevention of attacks to public order.
Also, the Constitutional Council pointed out that it falls upon the
legislator to decide on the conciliation between constitutional demands
related to the respect to privacy and demands related to the prevention of
attacks to public order.
This decision is in agreement with CNIL's position which reminds that the
installation of video-surveillance devices in private places contravenes
with the freedom of information legislation of 1978, as a person's image is
considered personal data and the transmission by video-camera of this image
is considered as automatic data processing. The commission believes the
legal status of video-surveillance should be revised and harmonised so that
there is a proper independent control of the systems, under its monitoring.
The French Government stated it took note of the Council's opinion and that
article 5 would "make the object of re-writing allowing it to take into
consideration the Constitutional Council's observations and to be
re-discussed by the Parliament during the examination in the Senate of the
draft law on orientation and programming of the performance of internal
security (LOPPSI)".
Constitutional Council Press Release 2010-604 DC (25.02.2010)
http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais/les-d...
Constitutional Council Decision no. 2010-604 DC (only in French, 25.02.2010)
http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais/les-d...
Video-surveillance : insufficient private life protection guaranties made
the Constitutional Council censor the transmission of residence images (only
in French, 25.02.2010)
http://www.cnil.fr/la-cnil/actu-cnil/article/article/2/videosurveillance-des...
The Constitutional Council validates the law on gang violence, except for an
article on video-surveillance (only in French, 25.02.2010)
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/depeches/politique/20100225.FAP0684/politique...
Validation by the Constitutional Council of the 14 articles of the law
reinforcing the fight against gang violence and the protection of persons
under public service missions (only in French, 26.02.2010)
http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/sections/a_la_une/toute_l_actualite/securite-in...
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7. Article 29: Reduce the storing period of Google Street View's images
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Alex Turk, the head of EU Article 29 Working Party (WP) sent a letter on 11
February 2010 asking Google company to warn people about the arrival of its
Street View vehicles and to reduce the retention period of unblurred
material from one year to six months.
Google has met a series of problems during the last period with its Street
View system in Europe being under fire from several EU member states such as
Germany, Finland, France as well as non-member states such as Switzerland.
According to a Dow Jones report, the letter sent by WP Article 29 asked
Google to notify cities and towns about the arrival of its Street View cars
and tricycles by "appropriate announcements in the national, regional and or
local press," while Google said it already does this by posting the details
on its web site.
Regarding the data storage period, Michael Jones, Google's chief technology
advocate and founder of Google Earth, stated the company had negotiated with
EU authorities and agreed to one year storage of images from the day they
were published on Street View. Therefore, the company believed "the
retention of the unblurred images is legitimate and justified".
The company tried to explain why it needed to keep unblurred images
(including elements such as faces, licence plates etc.) for a year. "The
need to retain the unblurred images is legitimate and justified - to ensure
the quality and accuracy of our maps, to improve our ability to rectify
mistakes in blurring, as well as to use the data we have collected to build
better maps products for our users," said Peter Fleischer, the Google lawyer
in charge of privacy issues.
In the meantime, in Germany, Consumer Affairs Minister Ilse Aigner had
threatened to take legal action in order to prevent Google Street View from
offering photos on German cities and streets. But Chancellor Angela Merkel
announced that Street View application would not be hampered despite the
privacy concerns raised by the consumer affairs minister. "Those that
consider (Street View) to be an invasion of their private sphere can make
use of the right to object," she said in her weekly podcast on 27 February.
In order to address privacy concerns, the German version of Street View will
offer residents the possibility to remove pictures before they are published
and it will include a tool allowing the quick removal once the images are
published. Lena Wagner, a Google Deutschland spokeswoman also stated that
the company would announce when its cars would be driving by to take
pictures.
Yet, although in February the company stated it would not drop Street View
in Europe, in an interview at CeBIT Technology Fair in Hanover that took
place between 2-6 March 2010, Jones stated: "I think we would consider
whether we want to drive through Europe again, because it would make the
expense so draining", which sounded rather like a threat.
EU rattles sabre at Street View - Warn people you're coming, Google told
(26.02.2010)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/26/eu_street_view/
Google May Review EU Drives, Won't Drop Street View (Update1) (3.03.2010)
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-03/google-may-review-eu-drives-won-...
Germany's Merkel gives blessing to Google Street View (28.02.2010)
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5298065,00.html
EU Wants Google Street View Curbed (26.02.2010)
http://gigaom.com/2010/02/26/eu-google-street-view/
Google warned by EU over Street View map photos (26.02.2010)
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/8ef5320729ce4298abefc1903704c7d5/Article_201...
Google Street View May Breach EU Law, Officials Say (Update1) (26.02.2010)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=a2Tbh.fOrFB0
EDRi-gram: Google's Street View faces trial in Switzerland (18.11.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number7.22/google-streetview-privacy-switzerlan...
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8. Survey on Chip implants in Germany
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According to a survey carried out by German IT industry lobby group BITKOM,
23% out of 1000 German respondents would accept to have a microchip
implanted in their body if that would bring concrete benefits from it.
The survey was meant to show the increase of the division between real life
and the virtual world, as one of the themes of the CeBIT technology fair
having taken place in Hanover between 2 and 6 March 2010.
However, the study findings are debatable as the respondent sample was not
only small but also taken from a special pool (CeBIT visitors who are
probably IT inclined anyway). And one must not overlook the fact that 77% of
the study respondents were, in fact, against the respective technology. In
fact 72% stated they wouldn't "under any circumstances" allow electronics in
their body.
About 16% of the respondents said they would wear an implanted chip in order
to be saved faster by emergency services in case of a fire or accident and
5% would be willing to have an implant to make their shopping easier.
"This is of course an extreme example of how far people can imagine networks
going," said BITKOM chief Professor August-Wilhelm Scheer during CeBIT who
added that implanting chips into humans was going to become commonplace.
"Some developments can already be seen. CDs and DVDs are going to disappear
as material sources of information. Wallpaper will be replaced by flat
screens and many of us will have chips implanted beneath our skin by the end
of next decade."
The professor did not say anything about the privacy and security concerns
related to the issue. Almost all implantable microchips already in use (as
those for medical purposes) are not encrypted and therefore vulnerable to
third-party scanning. Implanted microchips would be in the same situation as
the microchip passports which have been proven unreliable and easily
scanable by a possible hacker.
One quarter of Germans fine with microchip skin implant (1.03.2010)
http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20100301-25589.html
CeBIT: Quarter Of Germans Happy To Have Chip Implants (2.03.2010)
http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/cebit-quarter-of-germans-happy-to-have-chi...
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9. Declaration on Safer Internet proposed in the Macedonian Parliament
============================================================
On 24 February 2010, a group of MPs submitted a Draft-Declaration on Safer
Internet during the 39th session of the Commission for Transport,
Communications and Environment of the Macedonian Parliament.
MP Aleksandar Spasenovski is the initiator of the Declaration and the
proposal was submitted by both members of the government and the opposition:
Jani Makraduli, Silvana Boneva, Tahir Hani, Flora Kadriu, Andrej Zhernovski
and Slavica Grkovska-Loshkova. The draft declaration is a follow up of the
celebration of the European Safer Internet Day and consultations with the
NGO sector, primarily with the Metamorphosis Foundation.
According to the proposer, "the Declaration on Safer Internet is a step that
Macedonia takes in the process of approximation to the standards and
policies of the European Union, and for raising the safety standard and
quality of life of its citizens."
The declaration indicates the necessity for a further improvement of the
constitutional principles of freedom of speech and creativity, while noting
the positive impact of information technology and the Internet on the
development of a knowledge-based society to incite various social factors in
their areas "in accordance with the standards and practices of the EU Member
States and the EU itself, to pay more attention to the establishing of a
safer online environment for children, inter alia by establishing
appropriate institutions in this field, such as the Center for Safer
Internet."
In addition, the draft declaration also stipulates:
"Having in mind the fact that knowledge and education are the most effective
means to protect children from risks on the internet, we urge the Ministry
of Education and Science to introduce contents in the curriculums for the
primary and secondary education that would enable children to learn how to
behave online and how to protect themselves from the security threats
present on the internet."
The document also urges the Directorate for Personal Data Protection to
continue and improve its work related to personal data protection.
The draft declaration recommends that during the setup of public wireless
hotspots "assumptions should be made, that will allow children to be
protected from access to online content harmful to their moral and health."
It also recommends that the appropriate institutions should implement or
adopt "some of the European rating systems for multimedia content according
to the age for which they are intended."
Draft-Declaration on Safer Internet (only in Macedonian, 25.02.2010)
http://www.sobranie.mk/ext/materialdetails.aspx?Id=4d1989be-8a15-42b8-a90c-f...
Position of the Metamorphosis Foundation regarding the limitation of access
to digital content for protecting children (5.02.2010)
http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/activities/position-of-the-metamorphosis-fou...
(Contribution by EDRi-member Metamorphosis Foundation - Macedonia)
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10. ENDitorial: ACTA, the Euro Parliament resolution and political clarity
============================================================
The European Parliament adopted a widely-reported Resolution on ACTA on 10
March. It contained several positive elements. For example, it insists that
the Agreement not go beyond the requirements of existing EU law and demands
an impact assessment of ACTA's implementation on fundamental rights and data
protection. This latter provision is particularly important with regard to
countries outside the EU, which do not always have legal protections for
fundamental rights.
In addition, however, and widely unnoticed, a last-minute oral amendment
from the conservative EPP group was also adopted. This amendment calls for
"the Commission to continue the negotiations on ACTA and limit them to the
existing European IPR enforcement system against counterfeiting". That text
was adopted by a huge majority. So, if the European Commission persists in
pushing non-counterfeiting issues such as ISP liability in ACTA, it will
only have itself to blame if and when the Parliament is pushed into
rejecting the agreement by the Commission's actions.
This clarity from the Parliament is a remarkable contribution to clarity and
openness in this dossier, following weeks and months of half-truths and
misleading statements, particularly with regard to "three-strikes" measures.
We have recently heard several positive statements from politicians about
"three strikes" and ACTA. The assistant US Trade Representative Stanford
McCoy said "the U.S. Government is not seeking these or any other
obligations that would go beyond U.S. law in the ACTA", the European
Commissioner Karel de Gucht's spokesman said the EU is "not supporting and
will not accept that an eventual ACTA agreement creates an obligation to
disconnect people" and the German minister said "the Federal Government will
accept no agreement that contains blocking of Internet access".
The only problem is that it was never anybody's intention to place an
obligation on ISPs via ACTA to introduce a "three-strikes" rule or similar.
As the recent leak of the draft digital chapter clearly and definitively
proved, the plan was to remove ISPs' limitations of liability for IPR
infringements unless they chose to implement "measures" to prevent these
infringements from happening. The intention was, therefore, to coerce ISPs
into far-reaching policing activities in order to give themselves adequate
legal certainty. The point is therefore not to use ACTA to mandate the
precise nature of these activities - so the assurances on this point were
devoid of all real meaning.
It is interesting to note that, despite the German Minister's and European
Commission's protestations that they would not accept the cutting of
Internet access being in ACTA, the leak indicating the different negotiating
partners' positions shows no hint of any EU opposition to the measures
explicitly aimed at coercing ISPs into cutting subscribers' connections.
Now there is no room for doubt. The European Parliament has said that "the
proposed agreement should not make it possible for any so-called
'three-strikes' procedures to be imposed" and, in any event "any agreement
must include the stipulation that the closing-off of an individual's
Internet access shall be subject to prior examination by a court.
While the Parliament's resolution is not legally binding, it would be
foolhardy for the Commission to believe that a majority of 633 to 13 (with
16 abstentions) from the only directly elected EU institution can be safely
ignored.
Leaked digital chapter (17.02.2010)
http://sites.google.com/site/actadigitalchapter/acta_digital_chapter.pdf
Negotiating positions (12.02.2010)
http://blog.die-linke.de/digitalelinke/wp-content/uploads/ACTA-6437-10.pdf
USTR: No mandatory 'three strikes' or filtering in ACTA (10.02.2010)
http://copyrightsandcampaigns.blogspot.com/2010/02/ustr-no-mandatory-three-s...
German minister's position (only in German, 3.03.2010)
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/0,1518,681142,00.html
EDRi-gram: Leaked ACTA text confirms suspicions (24.02.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.4/leaked-acta-confirms-suspicions
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
============================================================
11. Recommended Action
============================================================
Document Freedom Day 2010 - 31.03.2010
Free your documents, save your information!
http://fsfe.org/news/2010/news-20100302-01.en.html
http://www.documentfreedom.org
Reporters Without Borders will celebrate World Day Against Cyber Censorship
on 12 March 2010
http://www.rsf.org/World-Day-Against-Cyber-Censorship.html
============================================================
12. Recommended Reading
============================================================
The safe use of new technologies
Pupils in schools that use 'managed' online systems have a better knowledge
and understanding of how to stay safe when using new technologies, according
to a report published by Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education,
Children's Services and Skills.
'Managed' systems are systems that have fewer inaccessible sites than
'locked' systems and so require pupils to take more responsibility for their
own safety. 'Locked' systems make many websites inaccessible and although
this ensures pupils' safety in school it does not encourage the pupils to
take responsibility for their actions or prepare them for dealing with
systems that are not locked.
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/News/Students-safest-using-the-internet...
Full report (02.2010)
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/content/download/10750/128225/file/The%20safe%20use...
M@rsouin, CREM et Universiti de Rennes 1:A first evaluation of the HADOPI
law effects on the practicies on the French Internet Users (09.03.2010)
http://www.lesechos.fr/medias/2010/0309//300415066.pdf
============================================================
13. Agenda
============================================================
29-31 March 2010, Barcelona, Spain
(D') Evolution Summit, the benefit of Culture
Citizen's Summit in response to the "Economy of the Culture" Congress of the
Ministers of Culture meeting of the EU during the Spanish Presidency
12-13 April 2010, Oxford, UK
4th PrivacyOS Conference
https://www.privacyos.eu/archives/98-Invitation-4th-PrivacyOS-Conference-Oxf...
14-16 April 2010, Berlin, Germany
re:publica'10 - Conference about blogs, social media and the digital society
http://www.re-publica.de/10
14-18 April 2010, Madrid, Spain
Campus Party Europe - Technology, creativity and digital culture online
http://www.campus-party.eu
19-20 April 2010, Istanbul, Turkey
8th Communia Workshop - Education and the Public Domain: The Emergence of a
Shared Educational Commons
http://www.communia-project.eu/ws08
24 April 2010, London, United Kingdom
Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) 2010
http://www.okfn.org/okcon/
29-30 April 2010, Madrid, Spain
EuroDIG 2010
http://www.eurodig.org/
6-7 May 2010, Krems, Austria
4th International Conference on eDemocracy 2010
http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/en/department/gpa/telematik/veranstaltungen/id/13...
26-28 May 2010, Amsterdam, Netherlands
World Congress on Information Technology
http://www.wcit2010.com/
30-31 May 2010, Montreal, Canada
Third International Workshop on Global Internet Governance: An
Interdisciplinary Research Field in Construction
Submissions for thematic presentations: 20 March 2010
http://giga-net.org/page/2010-international-workshop
8-9 June 2010 - Funchal, Portugal
4th International Workshop on RFID Technology - Concepts, Applications,
Challenges - IWRT 2010
http://www.iceis.org/Workshops/iwrt/iwrt2010-cfp.htm.
25-27 June 2010, Cluj, Romania
Networking Democracy?
New Media Innovations in Participatory Politics
http://www.brisc.info/NetDem/
9-11 July 2010, Gdansk, Poland
Wikimedia 2010 - the 6th annual Wikimedia Conference
http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
25-31 July 2010, Meissen, Germany
European Summer School on Internet Governance
Call open until 15 May 2010.
http://www.euro-ssig.eu
29-31 July 2010, Freiburg, Germany
IADIS - International Conference ICT, Society and Human Beings 2010
Paper submissions: 15 March 2010
http://www.ict-conf.org/
13-17 September 2010, Crete, Greece
Privacy and Security in the Future Internet
3rd Network and Information Security (NIS'10) Summer School
http://www.nis-summer-school.eu
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14. About
============================================================
EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe.
Currently EDRI has 27 members based or with offices in 17 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 visibly 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