No anonymous Internet usage in Denmark?

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Deutsch: Aus für die Anonymität im dänischen Internet?


A working group at the Danish Ministry of Justice is debating on a recommendation to the Parliament. The current text suggests that people using open wireless internet connections, e.g. at libraries, cafes, and private companies identify themselves with a personal code. It is not yet determined how people should be identified, but the working group considers social security numbers, electronic digital signatures, and SMS-es.

The existing Danish implementation of the Data Retention Directive does not require that users identify themselves, only that data such as payment information, hardware addresses etc. are stored.

EDRi-member IT-POL see the recommendations as an attack to anonymity on the Internet. The recommendations are not made public but they are described in the printed edition of newspaper Politiken of 23-24 June 2011.

The recommendations were criticized by several civil society members, including Rikke Frank Jørgensen (Danish Institute for Human Rights), Jacob Mchangama(think tank CEPOS) Niels Elgaard Larsen (IT-Pol), Pernille Drost (Danish Union of Librarians) or Jon Lund (Danish Online News Association).

Spokesmen for the two government parties are also critical of the recommendations and do not think that fighting international terrorism mandates that Danes should be surveyed 24/7.

So there is some hope that this will not be passed by the Parliament. Last year the Tax Authorities introduced a bill that would allow them to mirror the hard disks of private companies. After criticism in the media, an excellent brief by Mchangama and lack of support from the two governing parties, the Minister of Taxation decided to postpone that bill, pending investigations by a new committee.

You can no longer surf the web anonymously (only in Danish, 23.06.2011)
http://www.computerworld.dk/art/117279

Will PET curb our freedom on the net? (only in Danish, 28.06.2011)
http://politiken.dk/debat/ECE1319843/vil-pet-toejle-vores-frihed-paa-n...

Criticism: New Danish monitoring plan similar to DDR (only in Danish, 27.06.2011)
http://www.computerworld.dk/art/117284

No. of persons logging on public networks (only in Danish, 24.06.2011)
http://www.version2.dk/artikel/logning-af-internetbrugere-maaske-i-far...

(Contribution by Niels Elgaard Larsen - EDRi-member IT-Pol - Denmark)