============================================================ EDRI-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 4.23, 6 December 2006 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. Google accused in Italy over shock video 2. EDPS warns against EU endangering data protection principles 3. French ISPs need to block websites 4. Hungary's President says no to the PNR agreement 5. Google has taken steps to settle the Belgium lawsuit 6. France - Using Social Security number to identify medical records 7. Article 29 Working Party expressed its opinion in the SWIFT case 8. Britain takes another step toward a new Bill of Rights 9. EU Commission wants to push fight against spam 10. France Parliament shifts to open source software 11. Campaign launched in UK to opt out of central medical database 12. Support EDRI-gram 13. Agenda 14. About ============================================================ 1. Google accused in Italy over shock video ============================================================ A recent shock video published at the end of November on YouTube, the free video hosting service now owned by Google, has triggered extensive reactions in Italy. The video was showing a group of four Italian teenagers attacking a 17-year-old disabled boy in a classroom in Turin. The attackers also made a video of their actions that was posted on YouTube. Although Google had deleted the movie as soon as they were informed about it, the Italian Police has opened a criminal proceeding against Google - the Italian subsidiary. The action included a police raid on the Milan offices of Google. Google Italy has confirmed that the videos published by the users go online automatically and there is no editorial preventive filter from their part. They have also claimed that they delete all the videos that are contrary to their policy or have illegal content, but they rely mostly on their community to signal the illegal content. Google's spokeswoman Rachel Whetstone said: "We've been helping Italian police with the investigation and we're happy to cooperate." However, the Milan prosecutors have started a criminal case against two employees of Google Italy, considering they were responsible for not checking the content of that video before it went online. In this case Google was treated as an Internet content provider, and, according to law 62/2001 and art. 57 Penal Code, the webmaster is responsible also for the third party actions and has also journalistic responsibility to avoid "committing illegal acts". It is interesting that the prosecutors did not consider Google as a hosting provider and did not apply the Italian law 39/2002 that implemented the European Directive 2001/31/EC on electronic commerce. According to this law, there isn't a general obligation of preventive surveillance for Internet providers, and only in the case of a decision of an authority, they should remove or make specific content unavailable. EDRi-member ALCEI has pointed out that there are important comments to take into consideration such as " the responsibility of parents and educators, the widespread deterioration of human and social values, the warping of culture and behavior. " At the same time it has highlighted that some people are using this opportunity to control free speech: "They are "blaming" the internet for this awful episode - while it is obvious that the disgusting idea of placing a video online provided a tool for finding and persecuting the perpetrators, who otherwise would have probably remained unidentified and uncontrolled. Political spokesmen (of different parties across the "partisan" spectrum) are demanding or suggesting new laws and regulations, apparently including and obligation to obtain "written approval" by parents for minors to use the internet, but also to increase censorship, filtering and control by providers. " Italy's Minister of Education, Giuseppe Fioroni, considered the prosecutors had correctly applied to the Internet the same legislation regulating what can be published in newspapers or broadcast on television. The outcome of the legal action against Google is not yet certain, but some legal experts in Italy doubt its success. However, the main problem is setting one more nasty precedent for Internet provider - responsibility and control on user content. In one word - censorship. The "Google case" in Italy: one more excuse for censorship and repression (26.11.2006) http://www.alcei.org/?p=25 Not only the Google case (In Italian only, 27.11.2006) http://gandalf.it/nodi/censura.htm Shock video against a disabled teen. A European directive could help Google (In Italian only, 28.11.2006) http://www.interlex.it/regole/abruzzo12.htm Interlex no 353 The Internetfobia strikes again with absurd legislative proposals (In Italian only, 28.11.2006) http://www.interlex.it/numeri/061128.htm (Thanks to EDRI-member ALCEI ) ============================================================ 2. EDPS warns against EU endangering data protection principles ============================================================ The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Peter Hustinx, has issued a second opinion, following the one issued on 19 December 2005 on the Proposal of the Commission for a Council Framework Decision on the protection of personal data processed in the framework of police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters. The Commission proposal is presently under discussion within the Council of Ministers and although Hustinx appreciates the attention given by the Council to this proposal, he still voices concerns regarding the outcome of the negotiations. The text currently discussed has not included the amendments proposed by the European Parliament in a legislative resolution issued on 27 September 2006 or the EDPS' opinions presented at the Conference of European Data Protection Authorities. The amendments proposed had in view the enhancement of the level of protection afforded by the Framework Decision. In some cases, the provisions of the Commission proposal regarding the protection of citizens' data are even eliminated or very weak. Mr. Hustinx thinks there is a great risk that the level of data protection is even lower than before and warns the officials that they are endangering the data protection principles. Under the circumstances in which the exchange of police and judicial information among Member States becomes more and more significant, a strong legal framework should be in place to protect people's fundamental rights, considers the EDPS. Although he understands the necessity of adopting the Framework Decision as soon as possible, he urges the members of the Council to give some time to the negotiations so that they may allow sufficient protection for the data. "If they succeed in agreeing on a high level of protection for all data, including 'purely' domestic processing, they will at the same time improve trust between EU police and judicial authorities," said Mr.Hustinx talking about the Council members. He also showed concern that the framework might allow processing of data on religion, race or ethnic origin without sufficient protection and also that there was not enough protection for the data obtained by the bodies that are not involved with law enforcement. In this respect, he gave the example of the SWIFT case where bank transaction details were transferred to US. The EDPS proposed a certain consistency of the data protection rules that should apply to all the data exchanged in the police and judicial systems that should not be limited to cross-border exchanges between Member States. One other concern expressed by Mr.Hustinx is related to the right of a person to be informed on the activities related to his (her) personal data. "Some basic rights for data subjects, like the right to be informed, no longer seem to be guaranteed," he stated, considering that making the right to information dependent upon request was not acceptable. The EDPS also believes that the Council should adopt a proposal on processing specific data such as biometric data and DNA-profiles, whether related to the principle of availability or not. A cooperation agreement has been signed between the EDPS's office and the European Ombudsman P Nikiforos Diamandouros with the purpose to inform each other on relevant complaints. A joint statement from both offices said: "Because maladministration includes failure by the EU institutions to comply with their data protection obligations, it is important that we coordinate on cases where our competences partly overlap". Second opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor on the Proposal for a Council Framework Decision on the protection of personal data processed in the framework of police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters (29.11.2006) http://www.edps.europa.eu/legislation/Opinions_A/06-11-29_2ndOpinion_third_p... llar_EN.pdf Ombudsman and Data Protection Supervisor sign Memorandum of Understanding (30.11.2006) http://www.edps.eu.int/Press/EDPS-2006-12-EN_EO_EDPS_MoU.pdf Data protections are being eroded, says European watchdog (30.11.2006) http://www.out-law.com/page-7539 ============================================================ 3. French ISPs need to block websites ============================================================ The Appeal Court in Paris has decided that the French ISPs need to block the access to website AAARGH, considered as revisionist by the court. This decision was made even though the judges admitted that the measures would be imperfect and the site would still be accessible through other means as well. The action was started by a number of French anti-racist groups that have first asked three US-based hosting providers to shut down the website of AAARGH. But one of them refused to shut down the website and therefore the anti-racist NGOs continued their action in the French court. The 2004 French law that implements the EU E-commerce Directive gives the possibility to the plaintiffs, after all the possible measures to convince the hosting company to take down the illegal access have been exhausted, to impose to the ISPs to filter the illegal content. A first decision was taken in June 2005 when a lower court admitted the action against the major 11 French ISPs. The ISPs have asked in the appeal that the site be included on the blacklists used for parental control and have pointed out that the measure might block other legal websites, since an entire IP address is blocked, not just the URL of a website. They presented arguments that filtering methods are also very costly and not efficient. The ISPs have also asked to pursue directly the authors of that website. The Appeal Court rejected the ISPs appeal considering that their arguments were already rejected within the parliamentary debates for this law. The court also stated that the decision, even if imperfect, "has the merit of reducing, as much as possible in the present technical situation, the access of Internet users to an illegal site." The imperfection of the ISPs filtering solution is obvious in this case, as well. The AAARGH website can be accessed via any search engine. Also, even before the legal procedures were over, the authors of the webpage changed the hosting company and domain name and therefore now they freely explain users how they can use anonymising software to get to their website. Decision Court of Appeal Paris - Tiscali, AFA, etc vs. UEJF, J'Accuse, SOS Racisme, etc. (only in French, 24.11.2006) http://www.juriscom.net/jpt/visu.php?ID=866 Case AAARGH: ISP Filtering obligation confirmed in appeal (only in French 24.11.2006) http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/internet/0,39020774,39365008,00.htm Case AAARGH: Months of procedure for a inefficient filtering (only in French 27.11.2006) http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/internet/0,39020774,39365037,00.htm ============================================================ 4. Hungary's President says no to the PNR agreement ============================================================ The Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom decided not to sign the national law regarding the promulgation of the EU-US PNR (Passenger Name Records) agreement and sent it back to the Parliament, considering that it can be improved. This is one of the few set-backs of the new EU-US PNR agreement concluded in October 2006, even though there have been numerous critics to the content of the new agreement that makes possible for air companies to send to US authorities the personal data of the passengers that were registered in the booking system. According to the Hungarian President "it is necessary that the Parliament make possible the forwarding of data in the act on promulgation of the international agreement only in case the person in question has explicitly approved of it. The President's opinion is that a regulation of such content would not be contradictory to the international agreement." Therefore Mr. Solyom asked the Parliament to re-discuss the bill and to complete it with a rule that stipulates for the explicit approval of the person in question to forward of his data abroad. According to the presidential press release, Mr. Solyom has had consultations with the data protection ombudsman and the general director of Malev (Hungarian Airlines). Both of them considered that returning the bill did not prevent the operation of overseas flights of the national air company. Adam Foldes , the Data Protection Program Director within the the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union commented on the events: "Even if the Hungarian law on promulgating the PNR agreement includes provisions on asking for the passengersb consent for handling their personal data, it wonbt be very useful. How can anybody regard the consent as freely given when the passengers are not allowed to board or disembark the airplane without providing them. Although the Presidentbs veto is not futile: the current agreement shall expire no later than 31 July 2007. His veto should be a benchmark for the Hungarian Government in the renegotiations. " The Government might not push too much this issue since the U.S. President promised last week that he will ask the Congress to waive the visa obligations of the new EU member states. Dr. Kinga GC6ncz, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was asked by journalists if the Presidentbs action could jeopardise Hungarybs chances in obtaining a visa free status from the U.S. The minister replied she hopes the problem will be solved soon as it might cause problems in the long run. Communique: Today Laszlo Solyom has returned to the Parliament the bill about the promulgation of the agreement on registration of travellers' data concluded between the European Union and the United States of America. (29.11.2006) http://www.keh.hu/keh_en/news/20061129communique.html The Hungarian President of the Republic has vetoed the ratification of the EU-US PNR Agreement (29.11.2006) http://www.tasz.hu/index.php?op=contentlist2&catalog_id=3496 Draft of the Act on PNR Agreement (only in Hungarian, 10.2006) http://www.parlament.hu/irom38/01097/01097.pdf EDRI-gram: New EU-US interim deal on Passenger Name Record (11.10.2006) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.19/pnr ============================================================ 5. Google has taken steps to settle the Belgium lawsuit ============================================================ Google has decided to settle with SOFAM and SCAM, two of the Belgian newspapers groups having sued the company for using excerpts from their articles in the Google News Belgium service. SOFAM, a group representing the rights of photographers and SCAM, a group representing journalists, had joined Copiepresse which had decided to take legal action against Google in February, arguing that Google should have signed agreements with the Belgium newspapers for using snippets of and links to newspaper stories. After the hearing in August 2006, a ruling obliged Goggle to remove the links to the Belgium newspapers sites from its Google News service threatening the company with a 1 million euro fine in case of non-compliance. On 24 November 2006, during the re-hearing asked by Google, the company reached a settlement with SOFAM and SCAM. Jessica Powell, a spokeswoman for Google stated: "We reached an agreement with SOFAM and SCAM that will help us make extensive use of their content," but did not give any details on the agreement nor did she say whether similar agreements would be signed with other plantiffs. She also added : "Google respects copyright law, which we believe lies at the heart of the creative process. As today's agreement demonstrates our approach is to work in partnership with content creators and owners". Although Goggle lawyers argued that the company did not break any copyright law as it it only showed a link, headlines and a few lines from the articles, Copiepress said Google affected the authors of the articles because it gave away archived articles that authors sell. A ruling on the hearing is expected in early January. Google partially settles Belgian copyright case (27.11.2006) http://www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=7524 Google settles copyright dispute with 2 groups in Belgium (24.11.2006) http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/24/business/google.php EDRI-gram: Belgium says no to Google news (27.09.2006) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.18/google_be ============================================================ 6. France - Using Social Security number to identify medical records ============================================================ A new amendment proposed by the French Minister of Health Xavier Betrand is considering using the National Identification Record (NIR) as the identifier of a patient in the health sector. NIR is a unique number of every person in France, included in the national registry of natural persons. Created from data on the civil status of French nationals and residents, the NIR allows indirect identification of a person. It is made of 15 figures, indicating gender, birth year, month and place (municipality or 99 for foreign countries), and registering number of birth in the municipality. The NIR is used by the Social Security Service and by employers in the management of social benefits The Health Minister has suggested an amendment to the draft law on financing the Social security discussed by the French Senate. The text wants to make the NIR as the key to access the personal medical record. The usage of NIR has been limited, along the time, by the French Data protection authority (CNIL) . But now there are voices within the institution that will accept such an extension, with just a couple of weeks before its opinion on this subject will be taken. However, civil right groups have promptly reacted by pointing out that such usage could open a dangerous backdoor in the security of the medical files and will allow the interconnection of the sensitive data. A public appeal has been initiated and opened for signatures on 2 December 2006 by Human Rights League (LDH) and DELIS (Droits Et Libertes face a l'Informatisation de la Societe). The appeal is highlighting the fact that the NIR could be found in various files and this is just the final step before the interconnection. The NIR could be used as a social security number, but also to access the personal medical records and therefore the privacy right could be easily breached. The appeal wants to prove to CNIL that the French citizens, in order to keep the citizens freedom, do not want the extension of the NIR usage in the personal medical records. Appeal - My private life in the public eye, never ! Don't touch my social security number (only in French, 2.12.2006) http://www.pastouchenumerosecu.org/ Press Release of the LDH (Ligue des droits de l'homme) and DELIS (Droits Et Libertes face a l'Informatisation de la Societe) (only in French, 1.12.2006) http://www.pastouchenumerosecu.org/spip.php?article2 The social security number could become the access key to the medical file (only in French, 14.11.2006) http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0%402-3226,36-834271,0.html ============================================================ 7. Article 29 Working Party expressed its opinion in the SWIFT case ============================================================ On 21-22 November 2006, an opinion was adopted by the Privacy Commissioners represented by Article 29 Working Group ruling against the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) for having transferred transaction details to the US. The Privacy Commissioners wanted to point out again that fighting terrorism and crime should not lead to limiting citizens' fundamental rights and strongly emphasized the need to observe data protection principles. The Working Group decided that SWIFT, as a corporative company based in Belgium, was subject to Belgian data protection law that implemented the European Directive on data protection. It also decided that the financial institution in EU using SWIFT were in their turn subject to the national data protection laws implementing the EU directive as well. The Commissioners considered that SWIFT was the primary responsible for the processing and mirroring personal data while some responsibility for the processing of their clients' data came to the financial institutions. They also decided that SWIFT had to comply with the EU directive for data protection and that the financial institutions using SWIFT's services had to comply with the national laws on data protection. Among the obligations, SWIFT must notify the processing and provide an adequate level of protection for the data transferred. The financial institutions have the obligation to verify that SWIFT complies with the law and must have the necessary knowledge on the payment systems with their characteristics and risks. The Working Party also thought that, for the purpose of transparency, the financial institutions should advise their clients in cases when the transfer of their data involved certain risks. It was considered that SWIFT was also in breach of the EU Directive by the lack of transparency and efficient control in the data transfer operations and by not observing the proportionality and necessity principles as well as the guarantees for the personal data transfer to a third country. Regarding the transfer of data to the US Treasury, the Working Party considered that ".. the hidden, systematic, massive and long-term transfer of personal data by SWIFT to the UST in a confidential, non-transparent and systematic manner for years without effective legal grounds and without the possibility of independent control by public data protection supervisory authorities constitutes a violation of the fundamental European principles as regards data protection and is not in accordance with Belgian and European law." The Working Party Opinion asks for the immediate cessation of the infringements by SWIFT and the financial institutions and the compliance with the European and national laws on data protection. It also urges the financial institutions to inform their clients on the way their personal data are processed and to advise them about the fact that US authorities might have access to these data. The Commissioners wanted to emphasize again that the terrorism fighting measures must not limit the fundamental rights of citizens considering that: "A key element of the fight against terrorism involves ensuring the preservation of the fundamental rights which are the basis of democratic societies and the very values that those advocating the use of violence seek to destroy." Press Release on the SWIFT Case following the adoption of the Article 29 Working Party opinion on the processing of personal data by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) (23/11.2006) http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/news/docs/PR_Swift_Affair_23_11... 06_en.pdf ============================================================ 8. Britain takes another step toward a new Bill of Rights ============================================================ The London School of Economics has commenced a project to help pave the way for strengthened constitutional rights in Britain. The initiative is to be conducted over the next two years by the School's newly formed Policy Engagement Research Group that was founded earlier this year by Privacy International's Simon Davies and Gus Hosein. The issue of constitutional reform, particularly a Bill of Rights, is on the agenda of the main political parties. This year, Opposition Leader David Cameron has made a commitment to replace the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights, while the Liberal Democrats are committed to a written constitution. Currently Britain relies on the Human Rights Act as the basis for protections contained in the European Convention on Human Rights. The UK legal provisions are considered by many to be inadequate. The LSE venture called "Future Britain" will undertake a substantial research effort and a national consultation to foster the debate about how Britain should choose and implement a new Bill of Rights. Its aim is to discover how other nations have considered such questions and then, through broad consultation and outreach, assess these options in the context of a modern Britain to see which may be most appropriate and which are most likely to succeed. The project supporters say its most important contribution will be to create a neutral space for engagement. Future Britain aims to be the vehicle that engages and informs the UK on the issue of constitutional rights reform and might well be viewed as the first structured phase in the long road to entrenching rights in a written British constitution. It will be formally launched in February 2007. In the meantime the LSE will consult with constitutional experts and rights groups to arrive at the project terms of reference. The initiative has the support of both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats and will work with a wide range of groups including Justice, Charter 88 and the UCL Constitution Unit. Further information can be obtained through Simon Davies at s.g.davies@lse.ac.uk Cameron proposes UK Bill of Rights (26.06.2006) http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,,1805902,00.html Attorney General considers written constitution (9.10.2006) http://www.politics.co.uk/news/domestic-policy/constitution/monarchy/britain -should-seriously-consider-written-constitution-$454076.htm Liberal Democrat commitment to Bill of Rights (01.2005) http://www.libdems.org.uk/media/documents/policies/11CivilLiberties.pdf ============================================================ 9. EU Commission wants to push fight against spam ============================================================ The European Commission has criticized the member countries, considering that they should better implement the present legal framework and fight against spam, but also take more seriously into consideration the spyware and malicious software issues. According to the recent figures made public by Sophos, approx. 32% of the world's spam comes from European countries, with France, Spain, Poland and Italy on the top. And this situation occurs when all the EU countries have implemented the 2002 E-privacy Directive that has imposed the opt-in principle on spam. Cooperation in effectively implementing the legal acts is lacking in most of the European Countries. The Commission presented two European best practices in the fight against spam. The Netherlands that has succeeded in cutting the domestic spam by 85% through prosecution by OPTA that has 5 full-time employees for this topic and 570 000 euros invested in equipment. In Finland proper filtering measures have reduced spam from 80% to 30%. These measures together with good online commercial practices in line with the data protection law are among the measures envisaged by the Commission. The Commission has also announced that it will reinforce the cooperation on this topic with third countries, especially with the US and Asian countries. Viviane Reding Commissioner for Information Society and Media added: "I will revisit this issue again next year to see whether additional legislative measures against spam are required." In 2007 the Commission might make changes in the EU legislation in order to increase the user privacy and security. The possible changes include the obligation of the service providers to notify the security breaches and the possibilty for any person with a legitimate interest to take legal action against spam. Communication From the Commission on Fighting spam, spyware and malicious software (15.11.2006) http://europa.eu.int/information_society/policy/ecomm/doc/info_centre/commun... c_reports/spam/com_2006_0688_f_en_acte.pdf Fighting spam, spyware and malicious software: Member States should do better, says Commission (27.11.2006) http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/06/1629 Commission draws knives on spam (27.11.2006) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/commission-draws-knives-spam/article-... 60056 EU Commission urges states to do more against spam (27.11.2006) http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006 -11-27T174440Z_01_L27872269_RTRUKOC_0_US-EU-SPAM.xml ============================================================ 10. France Parliament shifts to open source software ============================================================ Starting with July 2007, the computers used by the French deputies will be equipped with Linux operation system, Open Office software and Firefox browser. The project, initiated at the request of the General Assembly President, was based on a study made by Atos Origin, a technology services company. The study has shown that the open source software can be adapted to the needs of the Members of the Parliament allowing for serious savings in spite of the costs required by the change. Benoit Sibaud, the president of APRIL (Association pour la Promotion et la Recherche en Informatique Libre) which is supporting open source, stated that switching to open source will give the French Parliament a better control over its IT systems without being dependent on the software supplier, at the same time giving the possibility to use the public money for better purposes. Previous initiatives in this sense belong to the French Ministry of Agriculture where open source software was chosen for servers and to the French gendarmes who adopted Open Office and Firefox. Open source software in the General Assembly (only in French - 22.11.2006) http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/presse/divisionpresse/m01.asp Free Software for the deputies (only in French - 23.11.2006) http://www.april.org/articles/communiques/20061122-assemblee-nationale.txt French parliament dumping Windows for Linux (27.11.2006) http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-6138372.html ================================================================== 11. Campaign launched in UK to opt out of central medical database ================================================================== A campaign has been launched in the UK to get people to opt out of a government scheme to upload medical records from family doctors' surgeries into a central health database. TheBigOptOut.org was launched in London on 29 November 2006 with support from NGOs such as Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) and No2ID. An opinion poll published at the meeting shows that 53% of UK citizens do not approve of a central medical records database with no right to opt out; another poll the previous week had showed that 51% of family doctors do not intend to upload data without patient consent. The campaign urges people in England to write to their doctors forbidding the upload of their data. The UK government response has included a letter from the Chief Medical Officer which orders doctors to report dissenters to the government; this letter was condemned by the British Medical Association as telling doctors to breach patient confidentiality. The Big Opt Out http://www.thebigoptout.org Media coverage of campaign launch (27.11.2006) http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2006/11/27/developments-on-health-privacy... Row between government and BMA, and latest news (1.12.2006) http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2006/12/01/health-privacy-breaking-news/ (Contribution by EDRI-member Foundation for Information Policy Research - UK) ============================================================ 12. Support EDRI-gram ============================================================ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. Thanks to your last years donations EDRi has been able to issue 24 editions of EDRi-gram in 2006. To continue with EDRi-gram in 2007 we again ask for your support. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation, or interest your organisation in sponsorship. We will gladly send you a confirmation for any amount above 250 euro. KBC Bank Auderghem-Centre, Chaussee de Wavre 1662, 1160 Bruxelles, Belgium Name: European Digital Rights Asbl Bank account nr.: 733-0215021-02 IBAN: BE32 7330 2150 2102 BIC: KREDBEBB ============================================================ 13. Agenda ============================================================ 11-12 December 2006, Paris, France LeWeb3: Third Les Blogs Conference http://www.leweb3.com/leweb3 14 December 2006, Madrid, Spain Conference on the Admissibility of Electronic Evidence in Court in Europe. The final event of the project Admissibility of the Electronic Evidence in Court in Europe (A.E.E.C.) funded by the European Commission and led by the Spanish company Cybex. http://www.cybex.es/AGIS2005/ 27-30 December 2006, Berlin, Germany 23rd Chaos Communication Congress: "Who can you trust?" http://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/Home 17-19 January 2007, Geneva, Switzerland Special Session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) : First Session http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=12043 20 January 2007, Paris, France Big Brother Awards France http://bigbrotherawards.eu.org/ 28 January 2007, Europe-wide Data Protection Day: An initiative of the Council of Europe with the support of the European Commission http://www.coe.int/t/e/legal_affairs/legal_co%2Doperation/data_protection/De... ault%20DP%20Day%2016-10-2006.asp 19-23 February 2007, Geneva, Switzerland Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda : Third Session http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=11926 ============================================================ 14. About ============================================================ EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 25 members from 16 European countries. 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 2.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram@edri.org> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ - 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/edrigram-mk.php - EDRI-gram in German EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided 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 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]