At the EDRI General Assembly of 1 September 2007 in Berlin, Germany, EDRI welcomed 3 new members.
ANSOL is a Portuguese independent, non-profit association, active in promoting free software. Pangea is a Barcelona-based Spanish ISP supporting social movements, existing since 1993 and a member of the Association for Progressive Communications. Electronic Frontier Foundation is a well-known US digital rights movement that has opened this year a European office in Brussels.
EDRI now has 28 members that are based or have offices in 17 different European countries, all within the territory of the Council of Europe.
Associação Nacional para o Software Livre (ANSOL) - Portugal
http://www.ansol.org
Comunicació per a la Cooperació (Pangea) - Spain
http://www.pangea.org
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) - USA, with the European Office
in Belgium
http://www.eff.org
http://www.eff.org/global/europe/
EDRI members and observers
http://www.edri.org/about/members
Sir Stephen Sedley has recently proposed the enlargement of the DNA database in UK to cover the entire population and visitors that stay in UK even for a week, under the argument of creating a fairer system and eliminating the ethnical unbalance in the present database. But a case brought by 2 English people to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) could change a lot in how the database will operate.
The UK DNA database is one of the largest in the world covering data from everybody having had anything to do with any crime, minor or major, guilty or not. According to Sadley, the database is biased against ethnic minorities. "It means where there is ethnic profiling going on disproportionate numbers of ethnic minorities get onto the database. It also means that a great many people who are walking the streets and whose DNA would show them guilty of crimes, go free."
The proposal met opposition from the Prime Minister who believes that would raise civil liberties concerns but also complicated logistical issues.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights organization Liberty, also said that a database for everybody in the country was "a chilling proposal, ripe for indignity, error and abuse".
The present UK DNA database is already raising issues related to the way people's data are included in it. Shadow home secretary David Davis considers the system is arbitrary and erratic. The highest concern is related to the fact that the data of people proven innocent cannot be removed from the database. And this is exactly what has triggered a case at the ECHR, that could change the whole situation.
The case was brought in front of ECHR by Michael Marper and a teenager, known as S, both arrested in 2001, the former on harassment charges and the latter with attempted robbery. They were both cleared and with no criminal records. In 2002 they required their data to be removed from the Home Office database but the Court of Appeal ruled against it. Among the appeal judges that heard the case was Sir Stephen Sedley that proposed a "universal DNA database" even in that judgment.
Mr Marper and the juvenile argued that keeping their fingerprints and DNA samples was an infringement of their private life rights as per Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Their concern is related mostly to the possible future misuse of their data.
The situation seems to be now in the hands of ECHR. A ruling by ECHR against the British Government could not only stop Lord Justice's proposal to enlarge the DNA database but also lead to the destruction of the DNA and fingerprint evidence of people that have been found innocent. The case is considered important by the judges in Strasbourg as they have sent the case before the grand chamber, because it raises a serious problem affecting the interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights.
"This decision by the European Court of Human Rights gives us significant hope that these cases will finally result in a massive change in the law - providing protection for those acquitted of crimes against their fingerprints and DNA samples being kept, putting them on a level footing with those not previously accused of any crimes (...) We think this will be one of the most important human rights challenges the court has grappled with in recent years" stated Peter Mahy, a civil liberties specialist at Sheffield-based Howells who represent Marper and "S".
All UK 'must be on DNA database' (5.09.2007)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6979138.stm
Plan to put everyone in DNA database hinges on human rights case (7.09.2007)
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=8455
Europe to rule on whether police can keep DNA of innocent people (8.09.2007)
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article2941849.ece
EDRI-gram : UK Home Office plans to fingerprint children starting 11
(14.03.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.5/uk-fingerprint-children
Microsoft supported format Office Open XML (OOXML) did not received a positive vote in the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) ballot that ended on 2 September 2007, failing to achieve the number of votes necessary for its approval as a standard.
Open Office XML is a XML-based file format specification for electronic documents, developed by Microsoft and sent to Ecma International, an international, private standards organization, to be published as the Ecma 376 standard in December 2006. Ecma International submit it to ISO for adoption as an International Standard, through the "fast-track procedure".
Microsoft OOXML claims there is a strong international support for its adoption as an International standard: " The Ecma Office Open XML file formats are being rapidly adopted across multiple platforms and products from a wide range of IT vendors, creating real value for IT users around the globe. (...) As well, the open standard has also been gaining broad adoption across the software industry for use on a variety of platforms - including Linux, Windows, Mac OS and the Palm OS. "
However a strong oposition has started to come up as well, complaining about a number of problems with the draft standard, including the existance of a standard ISO26300 named Open Document Format (ODF), unprovable implementation of the OOXML specification, information missing from the specification and even that is the lack of any guarantee that somebody can write software that fully or partially implements the OOXML specification without being liable to patent lawsuits or patent license fees by Microsoft.
The opposition concentrated around website noooxml.org tried to present these concerns to the national members of ISO in order for them to vote "NO". Also an online petition raised more than 45 000 votes against this adoption.
But the decisive vote in the approval of the draft standard ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Information technology - Office Open XML file formats was reserved to the IEC and ISO national member bodies from 104 countries, including 41 that are participating members of the joint ISO/IEC technical committee, JTC 1 Information technology.
In order to be approved the standard needed the get at least 2/3 of the votes cast by national bodies participating in ISO/IEC JTC 1 to be positive and no more than ¼ of the total number of national body votes cast negative.
The five-month process ended on 2 September 2007 and neither of the criteria was met - just 53% of the votes from the national bodies part of the ISO/IEC JTC 1 were positive and 26% of the national votes were negative.
This means that the standard will not be approved as suggested and a new meeting, called ballot resolution meeting, will be organized by the relevant subcommittee of ISO/IEC JTC 1 in February 2008 trying to "review and seek consensus on possible modifications to the document in light of the comments received along with the votes. If the proposed modifications are such that national bodies then wish to withdraw their negative votes, and the above acceptance criteria are then met, the standard may proceed to publication", as the ISO press release explains.
It seems unlikely that the February 2008 meeting will actually reach a consensus taking into consideration the various comments on the draft standard, but also the growing opposition from some important states, such as Great Britain, France, Korea or even Ireland, despite the optimistic approach of the Microsoft team. In this case the fast-track procedure will be terminated, but the draft standard could be re-submitted under the normal ISO/IEC standards development rules.
Another possible way forward, as suggested by the standards organizations of New Zealand or France could be to publish the MS-OOXML specification as an ISO/IEC technical report and not as an international standard. This will provide all member countries more time to work on the specification.
Vote closes on draft ISO/IEC DIS 29500 standard (4.09.2007)
http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1070
Results of the OOXML Ballot of 2nd September
http://www.noooxml.org/ballotresults
Next steps for the OOXML standard (5.09.2007)
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/09/05/next_steps_for_the_o...
Microsoft's OpenXML misses out (for now) on approval as ISO standard
(6.09.2007)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/95564
Strong Global Support for Open XML as It Enters Final Phase of ISO Standards
Process (4.09.2007)
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/s...
NO to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard
http://www.noooxml.org/petition
Although the answer to this question may be obvious not only in France, but also in Europe, two decisions from the Paris Appeal Court may well change this established understanding.
The decisions, respectively published on 27 April and 15 May 2007, concern individuals to the SCPP (a French collecting society of recording companies), in two cases of music counterfeit using P2P networks. The two appeal procedures included both civil and penal actions and were initiated in the former case by the individual and the public prosecutor and in the latter by the SCPP and the public prosecutor as well. In addition to the first instance decisions made on the counterfeit claims, the Paris Appeal Court had to decide on the conformity of the first instance procedures regarding the collection of IP addresses on the P2P network. In both cases, the individuals claimed that this collection should have been subject to prior authorization by the CNIL (French Data Protection Authority), and consequently concluded to the nullity of the procedure.
These claims were rejected by the Paris Appeal Court, which found that the IP addresses collection was conducted in full compliance with the law in both cases. The Court argued that 'the IP address doesn't allow the identification of the persons who used this computer since only the legitimate authority for investigation (the law enforcement authority) may obtain the user identity from the ISP' (27 April ruling). Surprisingly enough, the Court recognized in the same decision that 'it should also be reminded that each computer connected to the Internet is identified by a unique number called "Internet address" or IP address (internet protocol) that allows to find it among connected computers or to find back the sender of a message'. In its 25 May ruling, the Court considered that 'this series of numbers indeed constitutes by no mean an indirectly nominative data of the person in that it only relates to a machine, and not to the individual who is using the computer in order to commit counterfeit.' The Court conclusion was then that this collection of IP addresses does not constitute a processing of personal data, and consequently was not subject to CNIL prior authorization, as required by the French Data Protection Act.
The CNIL strongly reacted, expressing its worries after these decisions, and asking the French Ministry of Justice to consider filing a Cassation case in the interest of the law against these two rulings, a procedure that should be introduced by the General public prosecutor, and which purpose is to avoid either inconsistent jurisprudence or a jurisprudence not in harmony with the law. The CNIL reminded that, according to the French Data Protection Act, a personal data 'means information relating to a natural person who can be identified, directly or indirectly, by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to him. This is the case with a car plate number, a telephone number or an IP address.' The CNIL also noted that the Article 29 Working Party of EU DPAs, 'reminded in an opinion of 20 June 2007 on the concept of personal data, that the IP address attributed to an Internet user during her communications constitutes a personal data.'
In the mean time, the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice, in an entirely separate case lodged for reference by a Spanish Court under the preliminary ruling procedure, took the position that the EU legislation on personal data protection should prevail on the Community law on e-commerce, copyright protection and IP enforcement. The CNIL has obviously duly noted how much these conclusions from the Advocate General - which usually are followed by the ECJ - may influence the future shape of copyright holders actions both when they collect IP addresses and when they undertake enforcement actions to subsequently have Internet users' identity disclosed, making them far more difficult than they currently are in France and elsewhere in Europe. And wisely suggests that it would be appropriate to ask to further ask the ECJ for reference on the nature of the IP address.
Paris Appeal Court decision - Anthony G. vs. SCPP (27.04.2007)
http://www.legalis.net/jurisprudence-decision.php3?id_article=1954
Paris Appeal Court decision - Henri S. vs. SCPP (15.05.2007)
http://www.legalis.net/jurisprudence-decision.php3?id_article=1955
IP address is a personal data for all the European DPAs (2.08.2007)
http://www.cnil.fr/index.php?id=2244
French Data Protection Act (English version, 6.08.2004)
http://www.cnil.fr/fileadmin/documents/uk/78-17VA.pdf
EU Article 29 Working Party Opinion 4/2007 on the concept of personal data
(20.06.2007)
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2007/wp136_en...
ECJ Advocate General Conclusions on case C-257/06 (18.07.2006)
http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=EN&Submit=Reche...
EDRI-gram: ECJ's Advocate General says no handing traffic information in
civil cases (1.08.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.15/traffic-data-civil-cases
(Contribution by Meryem Marzouki, EDRI-member IRIS - France)
In some recently published documents, Statewatch revealed that very soon after the EU-USA agreement on PNR (passenger name record) was signed on 28 June 2007, the US government announced some changes in its Privacy Act that give exemptions from responding to request for personal information held to DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and ATS (Automated Targeting System). US Government also sent a written request to the Council of EU to agree on keeping secret all the documents on the negotiations for at least 10 years.
The declared purpose of the above-mentioned exemptions is for "national security, law enforcement, immigration and intelligence activities. These exemptions are needed to protect information relating to DHS investigatory and enforcement activities from disclosure to subjects or others related to these activities (....) Disclosure of information to the subject of an inquiry could also permit the subject to avoid detection or apprehension."
The exemptions are related to the new "Arrival and Departure System" (ADIS) that the USA is to introduce and which is meant to authorise people to travel only after PNR and API (Advance Passenger Information) data has been checked and cleared by US agency watchlists: "ADIS consists of centralized computerized records for and will be used by DHS and its components. .. The information is collected by, on behalf of, in support of, or in cooperation with DHS and its components and may contain personally identifiable information collected by other Federal, state, local, tribal, foreign, or international government agencies."
The Automated Targeting System, that is to be exempted as well, is a system of 6 modules of dealing with Passenger Name Record (PNR) data.
The exemptions seem to be meant to counterbalance "the set backs" for the US government in the EU-US PNR agreement signed in June. In the text of the agreement it is stated that DHS has taken the decision "to extend administrative Privacy Act protections to PNR data stored in the ATS regardless of the nationality or country of residence of the data subject, including data that relates to European citizens. Consistent with U.S. law, DHS also maintains a system accessible by individuals, regardless of their nationality or country of residence, for providing redress to persons seeking information about or correction of PNR."
The exemptions introduced now contradict this statement, as also notice Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor : "The adoption of these two exemptions will seriously diminish any rights EU citizens have to find out what data is held on them and who it is held by. Did the Council and the Commission, who negotiated the agreement, know the US was planning to introduce them, and if not why not?"
Another measure taken by the US Government related to the agreement signed in June is one regarding the confidentiality of the negotiations that led to signing the act. On 30 July 2007, Mr Paul Rosenzweig, Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy at the US Department for Homeland Security sent a written request to the Council of European Union to agree on keeping secret all the documents on the negotiations for at least 10 years after the entering into force of the agreement.
EU's Article 29 Data Protection Working Party issued on 17 August an opinion on the new EU-USA PNR agreement concluding that it sensibly weakened the safeguards provided by the previous agreement and that "the new agreement leaves open serious questions and shortcomings, and contains too many emergency exceptions."
"Yet again we see the USA telling the EU what to do. In this case how it should operate the EU Regulation on access to documents. How can any request for PNR documents be fairly considered under EU law when it has already agreed to exercise a US veto? Are we going to see documents for all future EU-US agreements kept secret too? US access to PNR data and its further processing is an issue of substantial public interest which directly effects the rights and privacy of EU citizens and therefore all the documentation should be in the public domain for parliaments and people to see and discuss. It is a quite outrageous request and it is even more outrageous that the EU is going to agree to it" commented Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor.
US changes the privacy rules to exemption access to personal data
(4.09.2007)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/sep/04eu-usa-pnr-exemptions.htm
US demands 10 year ban on access to PNR documents (2.09.2007)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/sep/02eu-usa-pnr-secret.htm
Proposed Rules, Federal Register - DHS, 6 CFR Part 5, Privacy Act of 1974:
Implementation of Exemptions (22.08.2007)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/aug/usa-adis-privacy-act-exemption...
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/aug/usa-ats-exemptions-privacy-act...
Article 29 Data Protection Working Part - Opinion 5/2007 on the follow-up
agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on the
processing and transfer of passenger name record (PNR) data by air carriers
to the United States Department of Homeland Security concluded in July 2007
(17.08.2007)
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2007/wp138_en...
EDRI-gram: Final agreements between EU and USA on PNR and SWIFT (4.07.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.13/eu-us-pnr-swift
The US Government has announced its intention to use the so called "state secrets" privilege legal tool in order to stop the lawsuit against SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) that has secretly disclosed millions of private financial records to CIA.
According to the Justice Department' s statement during the recent court filings, the lawsuit, initiated by US bank consumers against SWIFT, a corporative company based in Belgium, on invasion-of-privacy grounds, might disrupt the operations of a national security program and reveal highly classified information. In a motion filed on 25 July 2007, the Justice Department asked the court to throw out the suit in order to "preserve" the program against financing terrorism and in order to "protect Swift from the burden of further litigation here and minimize the likelihood that highly classified information will be threatened."
The lawsuit was expected to be put down in US as banking privacy laws are laxer than in Europe but James F. Holderman, the chief judge in Federal District Court in Chicago, in a June ruling, allowed the suit to proceed, partly on grounds of claims of a Fourth Amendment violation and agreed to move it to the federal court in Alexandria at the request of SWIFT lawyers.
The "state secrets" privilege, rarely used before Bush administration, has been lately used in more than 30 terrorism-related cases and is a tool that allows the government to halt litigations that pose a threat to national security. The Bush Administration invoked the tool also to shut down various lawsuits against telecommunications carriers over the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program but the claim was rejected by a Californian judge. A serious test of the privilege will be the result or failure of the administration to invoke it in the SWIFT case.
The US Administration considers the banking data program as an important tool in the fight against terrorism but privacy advocates and European regulators consider the program as improper and even illegal.
The SWIFT case was considered by Steven E. Schwarz, a Chicago lawyer representing the plaintiffs as "an Orwellian example of government overreaching and unfettered access to private financial information that is not consistent with the values upon which our country was founded."
U.S. may invoke 'state secrets' to squelch suit against Swift (27.08.2007)
http://iht.com/articles/2007/08/31/america/swift.php
US Cites 'Secrets' Privilege as It Tries to Stop Suit on Banking Records
(31.08.2007)
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/31/3543/
Bush may use privilege in Swift case (31.08.2007)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-200708...
EDRI-gram: Article 29 Working Party expressed its opinion in the SWIFT case
(6.12.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.23/swift
Belarus president Lukashenko claimed in a recent interview that on the Internet there was too much opposition to his views. As a response some groups of the Belarusian Internet community prepared a customized version of the Internet for their president.
Internet-community "Third Way" prepared a birthday present for Belarusian acting president A. Lukashenko - the most advanced version of the Internet - LuNet. The event, "Give Lukashenko his Lunet", that started on 30 August 2007, was intended to show how dangerous and absurd are Lukashenko's demands of control over the Internet in Belarus. Lunet consists of Lundex search engine, LuTube video service, LuJournal blog service and the most "honest" portal tut.lu.
"Internet surveillance may concern millions of Belarusians. That's why we consider it very important and timely to attract Belarusian and foreign media, politicians, and community's attention to the issue. We can't allow the last bastion of freedom in Belarus to fall. It's time to show that even in virtual world we can demonstrate real solidarity. We mustn't allow Belarus to turn into internet-hostile China!" said one of the action initiators, Pavel Morozov.
A well known Belarusian politician and dissident, "the father of independent Belarusian state" Zyanon Pozniak, academic Voitovich, sculptor Ales Shaternik, analytical project "Our Opinion", informational agency "Belapan", office "For democratic Belarus" in Brussels and more than 50 bynet sites as well as many Belarusian citizens' initiatives have supported the event (full list of supporters will be published on fromlu.net).
At the beginning of August 2007, while visiting "Soviet Belarus" newspaper's office, Alexander Lukashenko said: "We should stop anarchy in the Internet". He said "Belarusian state presence in the internet is petty. There is no government-owned site with auditory of more than 5.000 users".
He complained, "If you read what they publish, you'll see that we have a lot of opposition - no, not even opposition, hostile states and voices. Our opposition is their megaphone, that's a fact". Belarusian TV followed Lukashenko and showed a propaganda film discrediting free internet, and also soviet-propaganda style film "Net Wars".
Lukashenko's customised version of Internet(30.08.2007)
http://www.e-belarus.org/news/200708301.html
We present to Lukashenko his LuNet
http://fromlu.net/eng.html
(Thanks to Mikhail Doroshevich - e-belarus.org)
As Google plans to buy out U.S. web advertising supplier DoubleClick, the European Commission has already sent questionnaires to Google customers on the matter, even before Google has actually filed to the European Union's top antitrust regulator for the purchase.
This is considered a rather unusual step as although the European Commission has frequently sent questionnaires to customers, it has done so once a deal has been formally filed and not before.
Google is indeed expected to file for the about 2.29 billion euro purchase of DoubleClick as the company announced its intention to do so in its press release on 13 April 2007. The European Commission will examine the deal after it has been filed, to check for competitiveness.
The European Commissions' action to send questionnaires to customers is probably due to the complexity of the issue. Concerns have been raised since the deal was announced by Google.
BEUC (the European Bureau of Consumers' Unions) asked EU support in checking the private aspects of such a deal. It also drew the attention upon the fact that DoubleClick customers who have introduced private data in the system have not been asked about such a deal that would mean their data will be now with Google. US customer protection groups have also addressed the American Federal Trade Commission on the matter. The concerned parties argue that Google, after getting DoubleClick, will acquire an unprecedented access to information on Internet users' behaviour and that it may gain the monopole over online advertising.
EU questions Google customers over DoubleClick (6.09.2007)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKBRU00592120070906
Google to Acquire DoubleClick - Google press release (13.04.2007)
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/doubleclick.html
EDRI-gram: BEUC expresses concern over DoubleClick acquisition by Google
(18.07.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.14/beuc-doubleclick-google
The recent vote on the OOXML draft standard revealed a number of problems with the ISO procedures, at national as well as international level.
The national procedures have been often accused of being influenced by Microsoft, especially in Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the US.
Protests about Microsoft exerting improper influence on the results of the vote have been made in Poland and Switzerland, the latter voting in favour of OpenXML, despite the fact that the EDRI-member SIUG (Swiss Internet User Group) has pointed out a number of irregularities in the voting process and that a large number of Microsoft partner companies have joined the standardization committee a short time before the debate.
An attempt to influence the Swedish vote was revealed by the open-source community, when a leaked memo showed that Microsoft asked partners to influence the vote but had also offered to pay them to do so. The memo from Microsoft offered partners "marketing support" and "additional support in the form of Microsoft resources" in return for joining the Swedish national body.
Tom Robertson, general manager for interoperability and standards at Microsoft accepted the fact that the company was very active in promoting the standard : "Government agencies and national standards bodies have exercised their right to participate in this process, as have a number of companies, including those opposed to and those in favour of Open XML. Therefore, Microsoft has openly encouraged its partners to participate where they have an interest.(...)Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that a Microsoft employee in Sweden communicated with two partner companies about their participation in the Open XML vote in a way that was inconsistent with corporate policy and guidance. "
In the end. the Swedish Standards Institute has revoked its decision in favour of an endorsement of the OOXML as an ISO standard after receiving information that one member had enlisted more than one vote.
An interesting study made by the EDRi-member Electronic Frontier Finland has looked into these problems, including sudden interest from countries like Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia, Côte-d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Lebanon and Malta to the OOXML issue that was considered to be suspicious. "We studied the relation between the corruption level and voting behaviours of the countries. We found that more corrupted the country is, the more likely it was to vote for the unreserved acceptance of the OOXML standard proposal. We used the Transparency International's 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index as a measure of corruption."
Individual persons, such as blogger Andy Updegrove, criticised the voting procedure, complaining on the "irregularities reported from some countries have cast a shadow over the credibility of the ISO process. For the standards organisation, it is therefore of particular importance to demonstrate the validity and integrity of the final result, otherwise it threatens to damage the whole system."
An open letter to ISO from Geir Isene, CEO FreeCode International, points out many of the problems encountered during the process : "The fact that ISO enforces no standard for national bodies opens the standardization process for manipulation or corruption.(...) I strongly urge ISO to adopt a strict policy for its members detailing the rules for how a national body shall determine its vote in ISO and that it enforces such policy vigorously." Irsene also suggests that "within the field of IT, ISO would greatly benefit from adopting the IETF requirement of two independent reference implementations for passing a standard. This should increase the quality of ISO's IT standards."
The result of the closed-door ISO process called to action. Norbert Bollow has set up OpenISO.org, a truly open international standards organization, where all work documents will be made freely available to everyone via the Internet and decisions between conflicting opinions or interests should always be made in a fact-oriented manner based on sound engineering and openness principles.
Microsoft accused of rigging OOXML votes (30.08.2007)
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39288959,00.htm?r=1
SIUG Resources related to MS-OOXML
http://siug.ch/ms-ooxml/
Swedish Standards Institute declares Open XML vote void (31.08.2007)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/95270/
Corrupt countries were more likely to support the OOXML document format
(5.09.2007)
http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2007-09-05.en.html
Forecast: ISO Will Announce on Tuesday that OOXML Approval has Failed
(3.09.2007)
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20070903...
An Open Letter to ISO (7.09.2007)
http://blogs.freecode.no/isene/2007/09/07/an-open-letter-to-iso/
OpenISO.org
http://openiso.org/
13-14 September 2007, Strasbourg, France
Ethics and human rights in the information society organized by the French
Commission for UNESCO in cooperation with UNESCO and the Council of Europe
Programme
https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1178895
15 September 2007
Software Freedom Day
http://softwarefreedomday.org/
17 September 2007, Geneva, Switzerland,
WIPO Information Seminar on Rights Management Information: Accessing
Creativity in a Network Environment
http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/2007/sem_cr_ge/
21 September 2007, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Bits of Freedom organizes the 5th Dutch Big Brother Awards
Nominations can be sent to info at bigbrotherawards.nl until the end of
August.
http://www.bigbrotherawards.nl/
22 September 2007, Berlin, Germany
Protest march against excessive surveillance
http://www.FreiheitstattAngst.de
24 September 2007, Montreal, Canada
1st International Data Protection Commissioners' Francophonie Conference
http://www.cai.gouv.qc.ca/CCPDF/
25 September 2007, Montreal, Canada
Civil Society Workshop: Privacy Rights In A World Under Surveillance
A one-day workshop organized by the International Civil Liberties Monitoring
Group (ICLMG) in cooperation with Canadian and international civil rights
and privacy organizations ahead of the 29th International Conference of Data
Protection and Privacy Commissioners in Montreal.
http://www.thepublicvoice.org/events/montreal07/default.html
25-28 September 2007, Montreal, Canada
29th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners
http://www.privacyconference2007.gc.ca/Terra_Incognita_home_E.html
27 September 2007, Rome, Italy
Dialogue Forum on Internet Rights organized by the Italian Government, in
the framework of the Internet Governance Forum process, and in cooperation
with the UN and the IGF Secretariat
http://www.dfiritaly2007.it/
29 September 2007, Bern, Switzerland
Wikipedia Day 2007 - Switzerland
http://www.wikipediatag.ch
3 October 2007, Ottawa, Canada
Participative Web Forum
http://www.oecd.org/futureinternet/participativeweb
12 October 2007, Bielefeld, Germany
FoeBuD organizes the 8th German Big Brother Awards and celebrates a
great gala. The winners will be chosen from more than 500 proposals.
http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/
12 October 2007, Bielefeld, Germany
DVD (Deutsche Vereinigung für Datenschutz e.V.) held their congress
"Datenschutztag 2007" to celebrate 30 years of German Data Protection Act
and also the 30 year jubilee of DVD e.V.
Registration at: tagung2007@datenschutzverein.de
http://www.datenschutzverein.de
13-14 October 2007, Bielefeld, Germany
FIfF (Forum InformatikerInnen für Frieden und gesellschaftliche
Verantwortung e.V.) holds their 23rd annual congress also in Bielefeld.
This year's motto is "Datensammelwut" (data acquisitiveness)
Registration at: 2007@fiff.de
http://fiff.hbxt.de/23-jahrestagung-des-fiff
27-28 October 2007, Sofia, Bulgaria
Openfest - 5th annual conference for FOSS and free knowledge share
http://openfest.org/
11 November 2007, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
GigaNet'07 - Global Internet Governance Academic Network 2nd Annual
Symposium
http://www.igloo.org/giganet
12-15 November 2007, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The Government of Brazil will host the second Internet Governance Forum
meeting.
http://www.intgovforum.org/
http://cgi.br/igf/
4-5 December 2007, Rome, Italy
First QualiPSo Conference - Fostering trust and quality of Open Source
Software systems
Contributions Submission Deadline: 30 September 2007
http://www.qualipso.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...
17 January 2008, London, UK
Nanontechbology for security and the crime prevention III
http://www.nano.org.uk/events/ionevents.htm#security