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Deutsch: Schutz der Kinder im digitalen Umfeld und Rechtsstaatlichkeit
EDRi sent a letter to the Vice-President of the European Commission, Neelie Kroes on 3 September 2012 regarding the current work in the field of protecting children in the digital environment, while respecting digital rights.
While acknowledging the good work already done in some EU projects, such as EUKidsOnline that have set a new global benchmark for thorough research in this policy area, EDRi has raised in this letter a number of concerns, previously presented in policy papers or EDRi-gram, in relation to the development of the EU child protection policy in some specific projects and especially in the CEO Coalition:
"On the most basic level, we have been unable to get a clear response from your services as to the likely relationship of the Commission with any outcomes/agreements that the industry group could produce. Does the Commission envisage verifying or confirming the legality of any outcomes? Does it envisage publicly endorsing any outcomes?
A clear position from the European Commission is crucial – it needs to take a position as to whether or not any of the envisaged measures represent restrictions on fundamental rights(...)"
EDRi also points out to the the lack of attention given to ensure the credibility of the CEO Coalition: "For such an industry-led project to be successful, as well as for the Commission's own credibility, the outcome must be above suspicion of anti-competitive machinations or vested interests. However, the way in which the working groups have been put together raises serious questions in this regard. In particular, there is a clear risk that commercial interests of certain leading companies may have, or may be perceived to have, undue influence on certain working groups."
A specific issue is identified in the promotion of widespread upload filtering using the PhotoDNA software. Thus, there has been no attempt at all to produce comprehensive analysis of the experience of the use of PhotoDNA in the United States, where it has been used for over two years, nor by Facebook in Europe, which has been using the software for one year.
"This means that we have no independent verification that the software is effective both at avoiding false negatives (letting material slip through, a particular issue when there are few samples to hand) and false positives – a concern that it will incorrectly flag irrelevant material, in particular when it is trying to detect a great many images in parallel."
Thus EDRi expressed its worries that this and other policies generated by the CEO Coalition are not subject to rigorous analysis and risk implementing policies which restrict fundamental rights and asked for reassurances that such policies will not be accepted by the European Commission within the context of the CEO Coalition without a full analysis of both legality and respect for fundamental rights of European citizens.
The answer received from the European Commission on 8 October 2012 did not specifically clarify the EC position vis-à-vis the CEO Coalition and stated that they are committed to evidence-based policy: "EU-Kids Online (which we continue to fund) is one key element, but other sources including inputs from NGOs and from monitoring agreements such as the SNS Principles were also instrumental in defining the specific actions for the CEO Coalition – bearing in mind that these focused on short term goals where progress could be expected to be made. Our policies as reflected in the Communication on making a better internet for children are much wider than the work of the CEO Coalition and we trust that under Connecting Europe Facility – subject to positive decision in the context of the Multiannual Financial Framework negotiations – we will continue to maintain a strong focus on research and evidence building."
EDRi Letter to Commissioner Kroes (3.09.2012)
http://edri.org/files/kroes_final_child_policy.pdf
Answer from European Commission on EDRi letter (8.10.2012)
http://edri.org/files/Letter_17_09_20121.pdf
EDRi-gram: The rise of the European upload filter (20.06.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.12/the-rise-of-the-european-uplo...
CEO Coalition to make the Internet a better place for kids (14.03.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.5/ceo-coalition-freedom-of-speec...
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Deutsch: EuGH befasst sich mit biometrischen Reisepässen
The Dutch administrative court asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) whether the EU Regulation obliging member states to store fingerprints in passports and travel documents infringes the right to privacy.
This is a result of four cases in which Dutch applicants had been refused the issuing of their passports because they did not accept to provide their fingerprints. Since 2009, the Netherlands has introduced the obligation to store fingerprints in passports and identity cards. The fingerprints were stored in a database to be used for investigation purposes, but recently, the storage has been suspended. The Dutch court referred the cases to ECJ asking, among other things whether it should be safeguarded whether the fingerprints are used for no other purposes than the issuance of a passport or identity card.
The cases are suspended pending the answers of the European Court of Justice. The Dutch court also asked questions on the biometric ID card and function creep.
Similarly, in Germany, following a law suit brought to the Administrative Court Gelsenkirchen by a German citizen who had been denied the issuance of his passport for having refused to provide his fingerprints, the German court has challenged the same EU regulation to ECJ.
The German court considers the EU has no legislative competence to enact rules on standards for security features and biometrics in passports and travel documents as there is no direct relation of such rules to the protection and security of EU external frontiers. Such rules should comply with the right to privacy as covered by the European Convention on Human Rights and the protection of personal data. "Is Article 1(2) of Council Regulation (EC) No 2252/2004 of 13 December 2004, as amended by Regulation (EC) No 444/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May 2009, valid?" was the court’s question.
The Council of State asks questions to the Court of Justice in
Luxembourg about stored fingerprints for passports and identity cards
(only in Dutch, 28.09.2012)
http://www.raadvanstate.nl/pers/persberichten/persbericht/?pressmessag...
German Court challenges EU Regulation on security standards for
passports and travel documents (3.10.2012)
http://iftta.org/content/german-court-challenges-eu-regulation-securit...
German ECJ case http://bit.ly/QosFr2
EFF: Highest Court in the European Union To Rule On Biometrics Privacy (15.10.2012) http://t.co/Os8xiUUQ
Case C-291/12, Michael Schwarz – No fingerprints? No passport. An invalid EC Regulation? http://eulawradar.com/case-29112-michael-schwarz-no-fingerprints-no-pa...
(Thanks to Ot van Daalen - EDRi-member Bits of Freedom - Netherlands)
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Deutsch: Türkei plant eindeutige Identifizierung beim Zugang zum Internet
The party in power has been dreaming of following and blacklisting Internet users for a long time by making it obligatory to enter ID number and a password to access the Internet. Such applications are already in force in countries like China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Iran. However, the projects violating privacy are not even put on the agenda in the USA and European countries where people do not have to carry or submit their ID cards.
This project was first shared by Rıfat Sait, Izmir Deputy of AKP (The Party of Development and Justice). He said he would submit a law proposal on the “increase of Internet crimes” and obligation of ID number/password.
Afterwards, we were informed that a commission had been established under General Directorate of Security upon the instruction of the Prime Minister. This commission is said to be working on a similar plan which would treat all citizens as if they were potential criminals with the purpose of “preventing cyber-crimes”.
The commission’s “Draft Law on the Regulation of Informatics Network Services and Informatics Crime” includes other grave proposals: - to establish “Internet Monitoring Center”, which had been put on the agenda five years ago but then suspended, under TIB (Telecommunications and Communications Commission) in order to monitor and audit the entire Internet medium; - to make it mandatory for service and hosting providers to keep their records for five years, which would mean a further violation of privacy; to oblige “service providers” to intervene in “unfavorable” broadcasting; - to make heavier punishments of hacking.
The proposal that crowns this draft law is “to make it obligatory to enter a password accessing the Internet so that all the operations of Internet users can be recorded”.
Sezgin Tanrıkulu, Istanbul Deputy of CHP (The Republican People’s Party) shared the demand of the General Directorate of Security in the Parliament. This demand aims to prevent informatics crime by making it obligatory to enter a password and ID number in accessing Internet. He also submitted a parliamentary question including rightful detections targeting the Minister of Interior.
This draft law, which openly violates privacy, private life and the right to be anonymous and institutionalizes the censor on the Internet in a way to eliminate the freedom of expression, information and press, conflicts not only with our Constitution but also with the related regulations of the European Union.
The present article is chapter 2 of the "What has happened on the
Internet in Turkey in 2012? “Progress Report”” prepared by Alternative
Informatics Association (28.09.2012)
https://yenimedya.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/what-has-happened-on-the-in...
ID number and password to be entered to use the Internet (only in Turkish)
http://www.ntvturk.com/ntv-teknoloji/10958-internete-tc-kimlik-numaras...
The Parliament brought the Internet identification number (only in
Turkish, 4.08.2012)
http://www.yurtgazetesi.com.tr/teknoloji-ve-bilim/chp-kimlik-numarali-...
(Contribution by EDRi-observer Alternative Communication Association - Turkey)
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Deutsch: Portugal: Filesharing für private Zwecke verstößt nicht gegen das G...
The Portuguese prosecutors division DIAP (Department of Investigations and Criminal Acts) have recently ruled against ACAPOR (the Association of Audiovisual Commerce of Cultural Works and Entertainment of Portugal) in a case the latter initiated in 2011 against approx. 2000 alleged illegal file sharers.
Last year, ACAPOR members wearing T-shirts with the slogan “Piracy is Illegal”, handed over to the Attorney General’s Office several boxes with IP-addresses of allegedly illegal file-sharers. “We are doing anything we can to alert the government to the very serious situation in the entertainment industry. (…) 1000 complaints a month should be enough to embarrass the judiciary system,” stated ACAPOR at that time.
However, DIAP not only decided not to prosecute the 2000 file-sharers, but gave a serious blow to the entertainment industry by explaining that file-sharing for personal use is not infringing the law: “Moreover, from a legal point of view, while taking into account that users are both uploaders and downloaders in these file-sharing networks, we see as lawful this conduct of participants in P2P, for private use - art. 75 no. 2a) and Art.81 b) from Portugal Copyright law - even when it’s considered that the users continue to share once the download is finished."
The prosecutor emphasized that the right to education, culture, and freedom of expression on the Internet should not be restricted when the copyright infringements are clearly non-commercial. Moreover, the decision considers that IP addresses do not constitute evidence enough as an IP-address is not a person. “The IP-address is not necessarily the user at the moment the infringement takes place, or the user that makes available the copyrighted work, but rather the individual who has the service registered in his name, independent of whether this person using it or not” reads the ruling.
The Public Ministry says it is legal to copy music and films on the Net
(only in Portuguese, 26.09.2012)
http://exameinformatica.sapo.pt/noticias/mercados/2012/09/26/ministeri...
Portuguese Prosecutors Say File Sharing Is Legal - Anti-piracy
organisation’s bid to block file sharing backfires in Portugal (28.09.2012)
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/file-sharing-portugal-illegal-dow...
File-Sharing for Personal Use Declared Legal in Portugal (27.09.2012)
http://torrentfreak.com/file-sharing-for-personal-use-declared-legal-i...
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Deutsch: Mazedonien: Neues Gesetz könnte zu Internetzensur führen
A draft law on civil liability for insult and defamation related to communication over the Internet, which has passed the first reading in the Macedonian Parliament, may lead to strong censorship of the Internet.
According to the draft law, online service providers are liable for penalties, along with the author, for any damage resulting from offensive or defamatory information the provider has allowed access to, unless it can prove the author of the respective information “was not acting under direct or indirect control or influence by the online service provider”, and that it “was neither aware, nor that it should have been aware of the offensive or libellous material posted on the web portal, or that within 24 hours after becoming aware of the offensive and defamatory nature of the published text or information, the provider has taken all the technical and other measures for the removal of such information.”
This actually eludes the presumption of innocence, the service providers being in the position of defending their innocence instead of the plaintiff offering evidence of guilt or malicious intent.
Most worryingly, the term “online service provider” is extremely ambiguous and vague so that it could refer to any service provider including forums, instant messaging, blogs, so much the more as those allow for third party comments on posts. The judge will be the one to decide what and who can be considered as online service provider that allows someone to post an offending comment or link on a certain post.
The draft law will thus inevitably lead to service providers censoring the content posted on their platforms in order to avoid becoming liable for damages and being in the situation of having to pay fines of up to 27 000 Euro. This may also open the door to abuse.
Actually, the proposed law is unconstitutional being contrary to the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and censorship prohibition contained in Article 16 of the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia.
Several recommendations of media experts and journalists for improving the law came from participants to a debate organized by the Media Development Center (MDC). One of the main provisions of the law that should be amended without any doubt, is the division of responsibility and the fine between the journalist, editor and owner, if defamation is confirmed.
A strong reaction from the Macedonian online community was focused on a blackout of Macedonian websites on 8 October 2012, with numerous sites joining in.
Macedonia: Danger of censorship with the new Law on insult and
defamation (27.09.2012)
http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/en/news/macedonia/2244-makedonija-opas...
Macedonia: Law on defamation instigates censorship and contains
illogical provisions (8.10.2012)
http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/en/news/macedonia/2251-makedonija-zako...
Draft Law (only in Macedonian)
http://www.sobranie.mk/ext/materialdetails.aspx?Id=548ae3f6-ab2a-480d-...
Graph with blackout websites issued by Free Software Macedonia (only in
Macedonian)
http://skopjehacklab.github.com/blackout-mk/stats/
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Deutsch: Slowakei: Verfassungsklage gegen die Vorratsdatenspeicherung eingereic...
The group of Slovak MPs filed the complaint against the data retention before the Slovak Constitutional Court on 9 October 2012.
They requested the Constitutional Court to rule on the local implementation of the data retention and scrutinize its conformity with the Slovak Constitution. The complaint also asks the Constitutional Court, if necessary, to file the preliminary reference before the Court of Justice of the European Union on the validity of the data retention directive.
The complaint is being authored and prepared by the Slovak based intellectual property and internet law research center, European Information Society Institute (EISi), which pushed for this complaint in the last two years.
"After the General Prosecution Office twice rejected our request to file this complaint before the Slovak Constitutional Court, we had no other option than to prepare the template submission before the Constitutional Court ourselves and address the MPs. The liberal MP, Martin Poliačik, took a lead and persuaded other MPs. After two years of our hard work, we finally have the case before the Constitutional Court." says Martin Husovec, the lawyer of the EISi.
"I am convinced that we will soon see the result of our effort in the form of the Constitutional Court ruling, which will cancel the objected provisions and stop the retention of this sensitive data in Slovakia." says Ľubomír Lukič, the lawyer of the EISi.
Data Retention before the Slovak Constitutional Court (9.10.2012)
http://www.eisionline.org/index.php/projekty-m/data-retention-m/49-slo...
The template complaint before the Slovak Constitutional Court in case of
data retention (only in Slovak, 2.04.2012)
http://www.eisionline.org/index.php/projekty-m/data-retention-m/28-vzo...
(Thanks to EISi - Slovak-based non-profit organization focusing on the overlap of technology, law & information society)
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Deutsch: Aserbaidschan: Oppositioneller Blogger verhaftet
A new arrest made by the Azeri authorities raise concerns over the freedom of speech in Azerbaijan ahead of the next year's general elections.
The well-known blogger and opposition activist Zaur Gurbanli was arrested from his home on 29 September 2012 by several people who identified themselves as members of the Interior Ministry’s organized crime department. After arresting him, the police took him with them when they searched the offices of the Positive Change Youth Movement (N!DA) and seized about several thousand copies of printed N!DA campaign materials showing Azeri President Ilham Aliyev’s silhouette and the words "I will go in 2013 if you join the N!DA"
There was no information on the criminal charges that Gubarnli was accused of until 1 October 2012 when the press office of the Interior Ministry announced that "he had been placed in administrative detention for 15 days pending trial on a charge of refusing to cooperate with a police investigation into drug trafficking." But it appears that no charges have been brought with regards to these allegations.
Instead, Gurbanli was sentenced in a closed hearing by a Regional Court to 15 days administrative detention for deliberately resisting to obey lawful demands of on-duty police officers.
Gurbanli is well known for his blog articles against the current regime. In a recent blog entry, he wrote that it was "ridiculous" and "shameful" that a school anthology of Azerbaijani literature had included a poem by Leyla Alieva, the president’s daughter.
Opposition blogger arrested in growing crackdown ahead of next year’s
election (3.10.2012)
http://en.rsf.org/azerbaidjan-opposition-blogger-arrested-in-03-10-201...
Jailed Youth Activist Zaur Gurbanli Complained About His Treatement
(8.10.2012)
http://azerireport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...
Seven International Organizations Concerned Over Detention of Azeri
Youth Activist Zaur Gurbanli (9.10.2012)
http://azerireport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...
Leaflet that was confiscated
http://www.nidavh.org/
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Deutsch: “CLEAN IT”: Der geheime Überwachungsplan, der keiner war
There was a lot of interest among EU policy wonks and digital rights people last week about an initiative called CLEAN IT, following the leak of its “confidential” draft recommendations. “Police to 'patrol' Facebook and Twitter for terrorists under EU plan” announced the UK’s Daily Telegraph. Cory Doctorow blogged about how an “EU working group” had produced the “stupidest set of proposed Internet rules in the history of the human race”. The blogosphere was soon awash with reports of the new ACTA. There was only one problem: CLEAN IT is not an EU working group, and its proposals are not an EU plan.
So what was all the fuss about? CLEAN IT is a transnational project funded under the €600 million euro “Prevention of and Fight against Crime” (ISEC) programme established in 2007. Whereas the ISEC programme can be used to support projects “initiated and managed by the Commission with a European dimension”, CLEAN IT is a national project led by the office of the Dutch Counter-terrorism coordinator with their counterparts from Belgium, Germany, Spain and the UK brought in as partners. The project received €325,000 to fund four workshops, two conferences and the now hapless looking project team in The Hague. The stated objective of the project is to develop a “non-legislative ´framework´ that consists of general principles and best practices”.
What we’re really talking about then is a few meetings around Europe where representatives of law enforcement agencies, industry and government come together to discuss “terrorist use of the internet”. To most of the participants, it was probably a bit of a ‘jolly’; to the project leaders it was probably the cutting edge of cyber-terror policy. For what it’s worth, “terrorist use of the internet” is being discussed all over the place, including at the United Nations and Council of Europe, though these initiatives have apparently attracted much less critical attention.
Had they not produced such an incredibly stupid set of proposals, few people would have paid the CLEAN IT project much attention either, if any. It’s a sad truth that the European Commission is now throwing so much of money at “security” projects that if it converted all of their ‘recommendations’, ‘principles’ and ‘best practices’ into biofuel, Brussels would probably be carbon-neutral. But producing hot air is not the same as developing EU policy or even national policy – far from it.
Of course, it’s easy to see where the confusion comes from: that huge EU flag in the corner of the CLEAN IT website, and the fact that much EU policy does indeed get honed on international law enforcement ‘jollies’. Moreover, as the European Digital Rights Organisation rightly explains, the Commission is only too fond of sponsoring these kinds of devious deliberations whilst promoting ‘voluntary’ private sector enforcement across its ‘cybercrime’ portfolio.
But who cares if it wasn’t technically an EU plan? Surely by naming-and-shaming the initiative so ruthlessly – the EU Home Affairs Commissioner was forced to publicly disown CLEAN IT in a tweet – a little exaggeration has done the world a favour and killed the initiative? The short answer is: “yes, good riddance”. The longer answer is “yes, but…”, but it’s quite an important “but”.
An example speaks volumes. A few years ago news surfaced of an EU-funded initiative called INDECT. It was reported in much the same way as CLEAN IT. INDECT had received €12 million from the €1.4 billion EU security research programme and claimed it would help develop the surveillance equivalents of GM foods, stem cell research and ‘fracking’. INDECT promised to develop face recognition, internet surveillance, smart CCTV and drones as part of suite of “threat detection tools”.
People began to question’s the project’s credibility when it produced this terrible PR video, but by this time the cat was out of the bag and activists were telling the world that INDECT was building drones for FRONTEX (the EU border police), databases for EUROPOL (the EU police office) and targeting protest groups – none of which was actually true (ironically, an array of other little noticed EU-funded projects have effectively been doing just that). The widespread exaggeration and misrepresentation culminated in this hopelessly inaccurate video from Anonymous, which claimed that INDECT was about to be piloted at the London 2012 Olympics.
This is not good. We need activists armed with facts to target the real bad guys, for they are legion. And we need NGOs and journalists to focus on scandalising more tangible threats to internet freedom. The danger is that, just as happened with INDECT, CLEAN IT may become a focus for misguided activism while much more sophisticated but ultimately much more dangerous initiatives slip under the radar, comfortable in the knowledge that the amateurs at CLEAN IT have preoccupied many of their would-be critics.
We can be sure, of course, that there are elements in Europe who would dearly like to see the CLEAN IT wish list put into practice (including many from the law enforcement community and the industries that serve it, and some from the European Commission itself), but we should be careful to distinguish between transnational talking shops, EU working groups and draft EU policy. We should also understand that it will take scores of CLEAN ITs to take us down this particular road to tyranny.
With this in mind we’d surely do better to focus at least some of our attention on how these dreadful initiatives get funded in the first place, not least because the EU is preparing to agree its multiannual financial framework (MFF) for the period 2014-2020. As far as ‘security’ is concerned, there’s no sign whatsoever of the austerity that is devastating welfare and other areas of public policy. The proposed MFF includes the €11 billion internal security fund (a 40% increase on the previous MFF) which will allocate plenty to “raising the levels of security for citizens and business in cyberspace” and “preventing terrorism and addressing radicalisation and recruitment”.
A further €3.8 billion is earmarked for the new security research programme in “Horizon 2020”. Yet almost no-one from the human rights or civil liberties community in Europe is questioning, never mind challenging these particular ‘cash cows’. This is not good either, for the anti-democratic culture that underpins the myriad CLEAN ITs of this world is growing precisely because of the way ‘security’ is now framed and funded.
Article published initially on Netzpolitik.org (only in German, 9.10.2012)
https://netzpolitik.org/2012/clean-it-der-geheime-plan-der-eu-der-kein...
EDRi-gram: ENDitorial: Clean IT is just a symptom of the pinata politics
of privatised online enforcement (26.09.2012)
http://edri.org/edrigram/number10.18/cleanit-symptom-+privatised-onlin...
EDRi: Clean IT – Leak shows plans for large-scale, undemocratic
surveillance of all communications (21.09.2012)
http://edri.org/cleanIT
INDECT PR Video
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/File:INDECT-400px.ogv
Anonymous on INDECT project
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j73fUo-0oLk
MFF - 11 billion Euros internal security fund
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/financing/fundings/funding-home-a...
(Contribution by Ben Hayes - project director at EDRi-member Statewatch, UK and a fellow of the Transnational Institute)
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Deutsch: ENDitorial: Der WCIT-Vorschlag der ETNO ist nicht so schlimm wie manch...
Many people have criticised the ETNO's proposals for the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), arguing that these would significantly damage net neutrality. These criticisms are not entirely correct – because ETNO's proposals are far worse. ETNO's proposals would squeeze every ounce of innovation and competition out of global Internet networks. Goodbye Internet, hello Minitel.
The concept sounds quite friendly and just a little esoteric: “Sending party pays” (SPP). That sounds fair, until you realise that the sending party already pays. It sounds fair until you realise that SPP has always been the principle in the mobile world, and the result of this principle is tens of billions of Euro wasted by citizens on untransparent, unjustified and, frequently, unjustifiable charges. Years of regulatory action has finally led to the most egregious of these problems finally being solved in Europe.
And, by the way, in case you haven't noticed : in the world of the Internet today, the receiving party also pays – and have always paid. Each of the Internet users connects, using some local Internet Service Provider (ISP), and he or she pays to get access to the network. In other words, hiding behind some “new” proposals, are just the old failed policies of the former monopoly operators, who perhaps feel desperate to find a business model, in which they make money with no investments. And a model, which resembles as close as possible the old, analogue telephone systems model.
In 2008, despite over a decade of liberalisation, the International Telecommunications Users Group calculated that European citizens were wasting ten billion Euro per year in “spurious” mobile termination rates (MTRs). It seems surprising that this could happen in a liberalised market, but there is a reason for this, namely that termination rates generally react to competition like a drug-resistent superbug reacts to antibiotics: with indifference.
ETNO, however, tries to show some modern thinking, and claims that there is a need for QoS (Quality of Service) among the Internet users. However, there are no economic calculations that prove their case; in fact the users know that the Internet is as affordable as it is, because there's no guarantee of the QoS. And the users, strangely to ETNO, seem to like this. The success of the Internet is because the “end to end” and “net neutrality” principles keep the Internet open and competitive. Experimenting with this core element of the Internet's global success in search of a business model for increasing the profits of a few companies seems reckless, to say the least.
Reckless experimentation - in the pursuit of profit - with the functioning of the global internet are ETNO's proposals to the ITU WCIT. So, don't believe ETNO's critics, they don't understand just how bad ETNO's proposals really are.
WCIT
http://www.itu.int/en/wcit-12/Pages/default.aspx
ETNO's proposals
http://files.wcitleaks.org/public/ETNO%20C109.pdf
INTUG
http://intug.org/2008/06/25/europeans-pay-over-e10-billion-a-year-in-s...
Case summary T-Mobile/Truphone (as a possible example of the dangers of
experimentation in this policy area)
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=627fcab5-c948-42b7-8218-...
EU regulatory action on MTRs
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/710
(Contribution by Dimitar Ganchev, member of the Board, Internet Society – Bulgaria and Joe McNamee, EDRi)
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Deutsch: EU-Konsultation zur Netzneutralität: Letzter Aufruf zur Stellungnahme
On 15 October 2012, the European Commission's latest consultation on Net neutrality will officially end. Even though this is now the 6th consultation on Net Neutrality since Neelie Kroes took office as the European Commissioner for the digital agenda, and even though this is just another manifestation of the "wait and see" approach, it is still important to respond and to point out the urgency of regulatory measures. (You can find the link to the consultation and the questionnaire below.)
In a report published in May 2012, the European regulator BEREC clearly demonstrated that Net Neutrality violations are currently happening all over Europe. It found that at least 20% of mobile Internet users in Europe have some form of restriction on their ability to access Voice over IP services and that the same is true for at least 20% of fixed operators, especially regarding peer-to-peer. According to Commissioner Kroes, who initiated the investigation, this can affect up to 95% of users in a country. Moreover, the respectmynet.eu website has now collected over 175 confirmed cases of net neutrality violations from all over Europe. The results of broadband measurements from Measurement Lab have recently contributed to the visualisation of net neutrality violations worldwide in the form of an impressive map.
The European Commission's “wait and see” approach has failed European citizens in relation to local loop unbundling, on mobile roaming and yet again on mobile data roaming. Even though these regulations have later proven to be a success, operators still insist on arguing that the market would regulate itself. Faced with the ever-growing mountain of evidence that European operators, particularly in the mobile sector, block and throttle online services, should we make the same mistake again? The European Commission is still not doing anything to provide sufficient safeguards to prevent dangerous experimentation with the nature of the Internet in Europe, undermining both fundamental rights and the economic value of the Internet. On the contrary, Commissioner Kroes has moved away from her initial commitment:
2009: Neelie Kroes commits herself to the issue of net neutrality: “We also need to ensure that the new technologies are secure, respect privacy, and that networks are reliable and resilient, open and neutral”
2010: “Any content or application that is legal and which does not cause undue congestion or otherwise harm other users or network integrity should be fully accessible. In the spirit of net neutrality all such content and applications should receive equal treatment.”
2011: “I am a firm believer in the power of competition to promote consumer interests.”
2012: "consumers also need to know if they are getting Champagne or lesser sparkling wine. (…) I do not propose to force each and every operator to provide full Internet."
Therefore, please take a couple of minutes to respond to the questionnaire – answers to only some of the questions are absolutely valid.
Questionnaire of the consultation, for citizens (deadline 15 October 2012)
http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=NetNeutralityInd...
Further information on the consultation
http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/line-public-consultation-specifi...
Net neutrality map
http://netneutralitymap.org/
December 2009: Answers by Neelie Kroes to the European Parliament
http://bit.ly/WQTB7I
November 2010: Neelie Kroes speech during the European Commission and European Parliament Summit on 'The Open Internet and Net Neutrality in Europe'
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/10/643
April 2011: Net Neutrality Communication
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/11/285
May 2012: Next steps on Net Neutrality – making sure you get champagne service if that’s what you’re paying for
http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/neelie-kroes/netneutrality/
(Contribution by Kirsten Fiedler - EDRi)
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Lesestoff
Draft EU data protection law loophole threatens medical privacy (9.10.2012)
http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/security/3403973/draft-eu-data-pro...
Is the European Union Taking Human Rights Seriously? (1.10.2012)
http://www.soros.org/voices/european-union-taking-human-rights-serious...
Commissioner Barnier welcomes final adoption of the Orphan Works
Directive by the Council (4.10.2012)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/12/744&am...
World e-Parliament Report 2012
http://www.ictparliament.org/WePReport2012
European Parliament: Study: Reforming the Data Protection Package (09.2012)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2012/oct/ep-study-dp.pdf
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Agenda
11-12 October 2012, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Economies of the commons 3 - Sustainable Futures for Digital Archives
http://ecommons.eu/
25-28 October 2012, Barcelona, Spain
Free Culture Forum 2012
http://fcforum.net/
3-4 November 2012, Baku, Azerbaijan
Best Bits – a strategic gathering of NGOs around Internet governance and
Internet principles
http://igf-online.net/bestbits.pdf
6-9 November 2012, Baku, Azerbaijan
Seventh Annual IGF Meeting: "Internet Governance for Sustainable Human,
Economic and Social Development"
http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/
9-11 November 2012, Fulda, Germany
Digitalisierte Gesellschaft - Wege und Irrwege
FIfF Annual Conference in cooperation with Fuldaer Informatik Kollquium
http://www.fiff.de/2012
29-30 November 2012, Brussels, Belgium
For Your Eyes Only: Privacy, Empowerment and Technology in the context
of Social Networks
http://www.foryoureyesonly.be
4 December 2012, Brussels, Belgium
3rd Annual European Data Protection and Privacy Conference
http://www.eu-ems.com/summary.asp?event_id=123&page_id=983
23-25 January 2013, Brussels, Belgium
CPDP 2013 Conference - Reloading data protection
CfP by 19 October 2012
http://www.cpdpconferences.org/callforpapers.html
6-8 May 2013, Berlin, Germany
re:publica 2013
http://re-publica.de/12/2012/08/28/der-termin-steht-vom-06-08-mai-2013...
31 July – 4 August 2013, Geestmerambacht, Netherlands
Observe. Hack. Make. - OHM2013
https://ohm2013.org/