IP: Group warns of massive EU surveillance (fwd)

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Tue Aug 20 07:18:37 PDT 2002


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-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 10:10:57 -0400
From: Dave Farber <dave at farber.net>
To: ip <ip-sub-1 at majordomo.pobox.com>
Subject: IP: Group warns of massive EU surveillance


------ Forwarded Message
From: steven cherry <steven at panix.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 10:06:06 -0400 (EDT)
To: farber at cis.upenn.edu
Subject: Group warns of massive EU surveillance

Group warns of massive EU surveillance

By Graeme Wearden
Special to CNET News.com

August 20, 2002, 5:34 AM PT
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-954487.html

Privacy advocates claim that the European Union plans to make
sweeping changes to laws that govern communications-related data
retention and privacy, requiring the long-term storage of such
information and making it available to governments.

Statewatch, a U.K.-based Internet organization that monitors threats
to civil liberties within Europe, said Monday that European
governments are planning to force all of the continent's telephone
carriers, mobile network operators and Internet service providers to
store details of their customers' Web use, e-mails and phone calls
for up to two years.

This data would be made available to governments and law enforcement
agencies.

The European Parliament is currently debating changes to the 1997 EU
Directive on privacy in telecommunications, which governs existing
laws on communications data retention. This directive states that
traffic data can only be retained for billing purposes and must then
be deleted.

European governments were expected to agree to changes to the 1997
directive that would allow individual countries to bring in laws
forcing communications companies to retain data.

Statewatch, though, said it has seen a copy of a binding "framework
decision" that is currently being worked on by some EU governments.
The framework decision, which could be voted into law next month,
would force all governments to pass laws that would compel
communications companies to retain all traffic data for 12 months to
24 months.

As previously reported, it has been rumoured for some time that EU
governments were secretly working on such changes.

"EU governments claimed that changes to the 1997 EC Directive on
privacy in telecommunications to allow for data retention and access
by the law enforcement agencies would not be binding on member
states--each national parliament would have to decide. Now we know
that all along they were intending to make it binding, compulsory
across Europe," Tony Bunyan, editor of Statewatch, said in a
statement.

Bunyan added that the draft framework decision would sweep away the
basic rights of data protection, scrutiny by supervisory bodies and
judicial review.

The framework decision may include the provision that the police
would need to obtain a judicial order before gaining access to
traffic data, but Statewatch warns that such conditions have been
sidestepped before.



------ End of Forwarded Message

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