In the beginning of May 2008, a critical network error caused an Internet blackout for a great number of people in the Netherlands. The problem, by some said to be the biggest in internet history in Holland, caused over a hundred thousand DSL lines to be disconnected for up to four days, among them many subscribers to Dutch Internet provider XS4ALL.
After the problem had been found and fixed, XS4ALL sent its customers a letter to apologise and offered them a present to make up for all the inconvenience the problem had caused. Since freedom and privacy have been key values for XS4ALL ever since its beginning in 1993, customers could also, instead of the present, choose to have a donation made in their name to one of three organisations: EDRi, Press Now or Amnesty International. This has resulted in a donation of 15 262,50 euro to EDRi. A nice outcome of such an unpleasant incident!
EDRi would like to express its thanks to XS4ALL and its customers for this donation. The association is proud that it has been selected as beneficiary by XS4ALL and its customers, together with only two other prestigious organizations. This reveals the importance of the digital rights issues, and acknowledges the work of EDRi since its creation in June 2002.
Recent examples for issues EDRi is working on are the mandatory retention of communication traffic data, the EU-USA agreement on the access to Passenger Name Records (PNR) and the Prüm treaty on the exchange of biometric data amongst EU member states. But also technological developments like the upcoming widespread deployment of RFID applications demand attention with regard to threats for data protection, individuals privacy and security.
EDRi has observer status to the World Intellectual Property Organization and to Council of Europe Group of specialists on human rights in the information society, and is a member of the European Commission Expert Group on RFID. EDRi members have played a key role in civil society participation to the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), most notably with the organization and leadership of two civil society caucuses, on human rights in the information society and on privacy and security issues. They currently are among the main civil society actors in WSIS follow-up process, especially the United Nations Internet Governance Forum.
In a context where civil liberties are more and more threatened in the digital world, EDRi will use this generous support from XS4ALL and its customers to pursue its actions and to set up new projects and campaigns.
Individual donations are an important source of funding for EDRi that are also crucial to enable our regular activities like the publication of our bi-weekly newsletter EDRi-gram while maintaining our independent position.
If you also want to support our activities, please direct your donations to EDRi's bank account at the KBC Bank Auderghem-Centre, Chaussée de Wavre 1662, 1160 Bruxelles, Belgium
Name: European Digital Rights AISBL
Bank account nr.: 733-0215021-02
IBAN: BE32 7330 2150 2102
BIC: KREDBEBB
For more information please consult
http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring
where you also find information on how to get in contact with us.
XS4ALL announcement (only in Dutch, 07.07.2008)
http://www.xs4all.nl/nieuws/bericht.php?msect=nieuws&id=992&ta...