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Deutsch: EDRi's zehnter Geburtstag
EDRi celebrated the 10th anniversary with its friends and supporters on 2 March 2013 with music from DJ MEP Ehrenhauser & friends and DJs pEtEr Withoutfield, Tasmo & Cpt Pudding /Blogrebellen with Creative Commons sound only.
On the 4th of March 2013, EDRi also celebrated the 10th anniversary at the European Parliament in Brussels. To mark the occasion, EDRi held a meeting with European Commission Vice-President, Viviane Reding.
"As EU Commissioner in charge of the Information Society and now as EU Commissioner for Justice, I have worked together with the European Digital Rights organisation for many years," said Ms. Reding. "Thanks to our joint efforts we have made sure that the internet could not be blocked and that data protection standards remain high in Europe. Today we are celebrating EDRi's 10th anniversary. Congratulations for 10 years of great work! I look forward to continuing our joint efforts for strong data protection rules in Europe. EDRi's continuous support is crucial to make sure that the fundamental right to data protection is properly protected in our European Union."
At the EDRi General Assembly of 2-3 March 2013 in Bruxelles, Belgium, EDRi welcomed 3 new members: Alternative Informatics Association from Turkey, Modern Poland Foundation and Initiative für Netzfreiheit (IfNF) from Austria.
Now, 35 privacy and civil rights organisations have EDRi membership. They are based or have offices in 21 different countries in Europe.
Press Release: Mainstreaming digital rights in European policy-making –
10 years on (4.03.2013)
http://edri.org/edri10
EDRi-gram: EDRi celebrates its 10th anniversary (27.02.2013)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number11.4/edri-10th-birthday-party
Alternative Informatics Association (Turkey)
http://www.alternatifbilisim.org/wiki/Ana_Sayfa
Modern Poland Foundation
http://nowoczesnapolska.org.pl/
Initiative für Netzfreiheit (IfNF-Austria)
https://netzfreiheit.org/
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Deutsch: Macht Frankreich Fortschritte in Richtung Netzneutralität?
During an intergovernmental seminar on digital policy on 28 February 2013, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced the preparation for 2014 of a law “on the protection of digital rights and freedoms” which seemed to bring some improvements in online freedom protection, mainly in the net neutrality direction.
The National Digital Council (Conseil national du numérique – CNNum) was to express its opinion on net neutrality first. And if “there appears to be a legal loophole in the protection of freedom of expression and communication on the Internet (then) the government will initiate some legislative dispositions”.
Well, CNNum issued on 12 March 2013 its opinion on net neutrality recommending to the government to issue a law that would ensure the principle of the non-discrimination of communications, trying to extend it to search engines and other online services. Unfortunately, CNNum recommendations are in very vague terms ignoring to provide precise measures on the telecom operators’ obligations regarding net neutrality or any sanctions against access restrictions imposed by these operators.
“CNNum failed to propose a real protection of the Net neutrality. To try and solve different problems by one sole magic wand strike, this opinion risks to result in a neutralized neutrality which will solve no problem. As it has already been done in The Netherlands, Slovenia, Chile and Peru, France should legislate to guarantee Net by providing discouraging sanctions against operators which illegally restrict our online communications. If the law promised by the government is aligned with CNNum recommendations and is limited to a minimum protection of a vaguely defined neutrality, the Parliament should then amend the text to give it a real weight,“ said Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for EDRi observer La Quadrature du Net - France.
But the French government also suggested other measures that contradict the digital rights principles. Thus at the same seminar on 28 February 2013, it announced the return of administrative filtering of websites, a sort of "independent control" for "administrative cutting off and filtering measures" without any mention to any judiciary interventions thus reminding of Loppsi law which allowed authorities to ask ISPs or hosters to cut access to certain online services deemed to contain child pornography.
Other announcement referred to a reform of the French 1881 law on freedom of the press to take into account “the Internet's strike force”, and the calling into question of web hosting services' liability and their increased role against illicit content.
“The government does as if Net neutrality was the sole issue at stake in the protection of freedom of expression online. In the meantime, we see a resurgence of the sarkozyst rhetoric of considering Internet a dangerous lawless zone, which in turn justifies private polices or the return of administrative censorship. Under the guise of a law on freedoms online, which could bring real improvements, the French government is postponing a possible legislation on Net neutrality and bringing the issue of repressive measures back on the agenda.” declared Jérémie Zimmermann.
Freedoms Online in France: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? (1.03.2013)
https://www.laquadrature.net/en/freedoms-online-in-france-one-step-for...
The government discretely calls up filtering without judge of Loppsi
(only in French, 28.02.2013)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/25241-le-gouvernement-evoque-discrete...
Net Neutrality: the government should be invited to legislate (only in
French, 5.03.2013)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/25276-neutralite-du-net-le-gouverneme...
The Net neutrality neutralized? (only in French, 12.03.2013)
https://www.laquadrature.net/fr/la-neutralite-du-net-neutralisee
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Deutsch: Ukraine: Online-Redakteur wegen kritischer Artikel angegriffen
On 5 March 2013, Taras Chornoivan, chief editor for the Ukrainian news website Tarasova Pravd, ended up in hospital with serious injuries after having been attacked and beaten by three unidentified men.
According to Chornoivan’s declarations, the attack was probably due to the series of articles published by Tarasova Pravda website accusing Aleksandr Dombrovskiy, a former governor, of vote rigging in the last parliamentary elections. In January 2013, Ukraine's Supreme Administrative Court cancelled Dombrovskiy's election to the Parliament after an opposition politician had filed a complaint against him based on similar accusations of vote rigging. The website launched a print edition on 4 March, with a mocking photo, showing Dombrovskiy on a toilet, accompanied by a critical story.
"We are alarmed by this vicious assault against Taras Chornoivan, and urge regional authorities to bring those responsible to justice. A thorough, transparent, and effective investigation will demonstrate authorities' commitment to free expression and the rule of law," stated Muzaffar Suleymanov, Europe and Central Asia Program Research Associate of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Dombrovskiy's spokesman denied his involvement in the incident.
Editor of critical website brutally assaulted in Ukraine (8.03.2013)
http://www.ifex.org/ukraine/2013/03/08/assault_editor/
Journalist violently beaten in Vinnytsya (7.03.2013)
http://imi.org.ua/en/news/journalist-violently-beaten-vinnytsya
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Deutsch: Artikel 29 Gruppe setzt nächsten Ermittlungsschritt in Sachen Google
In October 2012, Article 29 Working Party (representing the data protection authorities (DPAs) of the EU member states) made recommendations to Google to solve certain deficiencies regarding its privacy policy. Now the group believes that the company has not taken the necessary measures to address the highlighted issues and therefore it is still in non-compliance of Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC.
In the plenary session meeting of 26 February 2013, the EU DPAs decided to continue their investigations on Google and to take all necessary actions in their power and according to their competences, under the coordination of a taskforce led by the French DPA (CNIL).
It appears as if the data protection authorities are no longer willing to close their eyes to Google’s irregularities.
The DPAs taskforce will meet in the coming weeks and Google will be invited for a hearing. Some of the issues that could be questioned by the DPAs include the conditions of Google’s transfer, to application developers, of personal information of all Android device users having purchased an application from the “Google Play” app store and the conditions under which data has been transferred outside the EU, the lack of response to CNIL’s questions regarding Google’s changes in its privacy policy or the privacy issues in new projects, such as Google Glass.
Article 29 Data Protection Working Party Press Release -
Google’s privacy policy: European data protection authorities are
coordinating their enforcement actions (27.02.2013)
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/article-29/press-material/...
Five questions European regulators need to ask Google – and Al Capone
(11.03.2013)
http://www.privacysurgeon.org/blog/incision/five-questions-european-re...
Google's privacy policy: G29 ready for coordinated enforcement actions
(28.02.2013)
http://www.cnil.fr/english/news-and-events/news/article/googles-privac...
EDRi-gram: Google needs to improve its privacy practices (24.10.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.20/european-dpas-google-privacy-...
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Deutsch: Hadopi für eine Privatisierung der Rechtsdurchsetzung
The French anti-piracy authority Hadopi has produced a new report on how to fight illegal streaming and downloading of copyrighted material.
This is probably an attempt of ensuring its future as, since its installation in 2009, the authority has not yet proven its efficiency with the so-called three-strikes system, in terms of revenues to the culture industry, and has already cost France tens of millions of euros.
“Some Internet sites, streaming services and direct download sites are specialized in the massive exploitation of illegal content from which they make profits for their own benefit. This report, showing the state of the ecosystem of illegal streaming and direct downloads, explores different ways to fight against the massive exploitation of illegal content.” says the report drafted by Mireille Imbert-Quaretta, President at the Commission for the Protection of Rights (Commission de Protection des Droits).
Hadopi suggests it might rely more on ISPs, search engines, advertising agencies, payment solutions providers, as well as hosting companies which could be asked to implement content recognition and filtering technologies utilizing fingerprinting techniques supplied by rightsholders. These systems can automatically remove infringing content by the identification of their digital “watermarks" or restrict user access based on location.
The report even suggests that a website operator may be itself subject to a strikes-style system in case it refuses to sign filtering agreements with rightsholders and illicit content repeatedly appears. “In the event that it would not be possible to reach an agreement because of the apparent unwillingness of the platform hosting the reported content (to comply with the law), the public authority may decide to correct the behaviour of the platform through an alert procedure,” says the report.
The punishments suggested in the report to non-compliant sites vary from reporting them to search engines for un-listing, to reporting them to a judge in order to begin a domain blocking process. Once blocked by IP and DNS, Hadopi wants to have the power to ensure that domains (and any subsequent mirrors) blocked by IP and DNS remain blocked and even domain seizures are also possible.
Moreover, Hadopi wants to target the financial intermediaries of sites subjected to the copyright alerts procedure If the financial partners refuse to suspend or terminate payments, Hadopi suggests taking the matter to court.
Another idea is that of "a browser plug-in to perform some filtering" to stop users from getting access to copyright-infringing material, or that of using a filtering system directly embedded within the operating system.
The report states it only offers a number of proposals and not final recommendations. In the meantime, Hadopi’s future seems related to the conclusions drawn by Pierre Lescure who has the task from the French government to find ways to protect the country's digital works in the digital age. Lescure's conclusions will be discussed by the French parliament this autumn.
Report on the means to fight illegal streaming and direct downloading
(only in French, 15.02.2013)
http://www.hadopi.fr/sites/default/files/page/pdf/Rapport_streaming_20...
French Government Mulls Next Generation Anti-Piracy Measures (26.02.2013)
http://torrentfreak.com/french-government-mulls-next-generation-anti-p...
How Hadopi wants to suppress illegal streaming and Direct Downloading by
blackmail (only in French, 25.02.2013)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/25197-comment-la-hadopi-veut-supprime...
France's anti-piracy watchdog ponders evolution, faces extinction
(6.03.2013)
http://www.zdnet.com/frances-anti-piracy-watchdog-ponders-evolution-fa...
EDRi-gram: Hadopi report says nothing about decreases in sales (11.04.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.7/hadopi-report-misleading
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Deutsch: ACTA und TAFTA: Absolute Transparenz ist gefragt
In a letter sent to the president of the European Parliament, Linus Nordberg, a Swedish advocate, developer for Tor and representative of the EDRi-member Association for Digital Liberties from Sweden (Föreningen för digitala fri- och rättigheter – DFRI) asks for transparency and clarity regarding ACTA treaties and an immediate and full release to the public of the related documents.
Nordberg considers that The European Parliament (EP) has given ambiguous messages regarding ACTA, playing an “active role in transparency issues relating to ACTA both by demanding disclosure and by disclosing documents, but also, in some instances, by actively withholding public information."
DFRI wants the EP to keep showing high transparency standards even after the closure of ACTA files and asks for a total and public disclosure of the all documents related to the agreement.
The letter makes reference to the observations sent by the EP to the European Court of Justice and to the question asked by the Court of Justice also sent to the EP, as well as to other documents “we don't know of."
The request follows actions announced by US President Obama towards the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA), a joint American and European legislative initiative that might be another version of ACTA which was rejected by the EP in July 2012 with a crashing majority, following large public protests. The talks over TAFTA will start this year.
"(ACTA) was a wake up call for many of us in the European Union member states, that the European Parliament lacked the will or the power, whichever would be the worst I don't know, to let the people ultimately affected by the upcoming legislation learn what was at stake," stated Nordberg for the The Inquirer.
Digital liberties group wants to shine a light on all ACTA and TAFTA
discussions (1.03.2013)
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2251585/digital-liberties-gro...
DFRI (Linus Nordberg)’s letter (26.02.2013)
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.org.user-groups.dfri/406
EDRi-gram: Thank you SOPA, thank you ACTA (4.07.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.13/good-bye-acta
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Deutsch: ENDitorial: Porno, Parlament, Gepose, Politik und privatisierte Rechts...
There was a lot of noise surrounding the proposed “porn ban” that was voted on this week (on 12 March 2013) in the European Parliament. The draft Resolution, adopted by the Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee (FEMM), called for the Commission to take action to implement the measures indicated in the 1997 Parliament resolution on advertising, in particular with regard to the ban on pornography that it proposed. It further called for an over-arching industry effort to police gender equality issues through the use of a “Charter” to be enforced by Internet operators.
The text being proposed was a vote to ban “all forms of pornography” in the “media”. What does “all forms” mean? What does “pornography” mean? According to the online Oxford English Dictionary, the intention of the portrayal is crucial to whether an image or a text can be considered “pornography”. What exactly was the drafter of this text trying to ban? And which media? Books meant to tittilate? The “mummy porn” book “50 Shades of Grey” was in the print medium and apparently intended to tittilate. It was the first book ever to sell one million Kindle e-books. Was the plan to prohibit women from purchasing this book in order to protect them from... ? Almost certainly not.
Actually, it turns out that this was not the intention at all. During the debate, Kartika Liotard, the Parliamentarian that proposed that particular text, made it clear that she didn't mean the proposal to be taken seriously. Instead it is simply meant to draw attention to the issues at stake. When she wrote that she wanted to ban “all forms of pornography” she absolutely did not want to create any obligations or to ban anything. “Everyone knows” she explained, that it is not a legislative proposal. A non-legislative report like this one is to draw attention to issues and to advise the Commission. In short, she fully expected and accepted that a vote of the European Parliament for a text proposing a ban on pornography would simply be understood as not meant to be taken seriously – it was just to highlight the issue. As Alice in Wonderland said, “the question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things”.
Some of the politics played with the report were disappointing, but almost funny. Swedish Pirate Party “evangelist” Rick Falkvinge set up an e-mail “exploder” address to be used to campaign against the proposal.
Every single e-mail sent to the europarl-all-mar2013@falkvinge.net sent e-mails to every one of the 754 MEPs - and he was surprised when the ensuing of tens of thousands of e-mails caused the European Parliament's IT services to set up countermeasures. He then wrote a blog post which wilfully misrepresented non-legislative reports like this one as being “part of a legislative process”. If this were true, the 1997 Parliament report which called for a “ban on porn” would have been in place for years. He then goes on to say that the fact that the Parliament explicitly deleted a reference to the proposed ban on pornography somehow means that the Parliament supports this provision of the 1997 text. Most surprisingly of all, he attacks the fact that there were not recorded (“roll call”) votes, arguing that this means that the Parliament “decided collectively to disable their constituents from holding them accountable.” Why is this surprising? Each political group can formally request a roll-call vote – so, he is (unjustly) accusing his own Pirate Party colleagues that are members of the European Parliament of anti-democratic behaviour.
While the “ban on porn” was worrying, the “Charter” for policing of gender stereotypes was much more serious. It was yet another attempt to privatise the regulation of free speech in the hands of online operators. This proposal was also explicitly rejected in the vote, with the Parliament following the same approach as it did during the vote on the Cavada Report on Distribution of Audiovisual Works in the European Union in July 2012. These two votes represent a change of approach from the European Parliament. Whereas it voted at the beginning of the current term of office for more online policing (in the Gallo report) by internet intermediaries, the Parliament has now twice voted, by a significant majority, in plenary session against this approach.
Dictionary: Definition of Pornography
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/pornography?q=pornogr...
Ms Liotard's intervention in the Parliament debate (min. 17.22)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ep-live/en/plenary/video?debate=13630186...
Cavada Report on the online distribution of audiovisual works in
the European Union (as adopted by Committee) (25.07.2012)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fNO...
Gallo report on enforcement of intellectual property rights in the
internal market (3.06.2010)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&referenc...
Falkvinge: European Parliament Just Voted To Ban Porn, But Refrains From
Extending Scope To Internet Following Protests, And Hides Who Voted For
It (12.03.2013)
http://falkvinge.net/2013/03/12/european-parliament-just-voted-to-ban-...
European Parliament considers a ban on “all pornography”, policed by private companies (7.03.2013)
http://edri.org/porn_ban
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Lesestoff
The Enemies of Internet 2013 (12.03.2013)
Special report on Internet surveillance, focusing on five governments
and five companies that are Enemies of the Internet
http://surveillance.rsf.org/en/
Italian police investigate telecom data retention (6.03.2013)
http://www.telecompaper.com/news/italian-police-investigate-telecom-da...
How Facebook could get you arrested (9.03.2013)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/09/facebook-arrested-evg...
Comprehensive Study on Cybercrime - UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Vienna
(draft, 9.03.2013)
http://www.unodc.org/documents/organized-crime/UNODC_CCPCJ_EG.4_2013/C...
Privacy and data protection developments in 2013: Google, Facebook,
Leveson and more (11.03.2013)
http://www.panopticonblog.com/2013/03/11/privacy-and-data-protection-d...
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Deutsch: Agenda
21-22 March 2013, Malta
Online Privacy: Consenting to your Future
http://www.onlineprivacyconference.eu/
23 March, Brussels
CryptoParty at the EDRi offices
https://cryptoparty.org/wiki/Brussels
12 April 2013, Biefeld, Germany
Big Brother Awards Germany
http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/
6-8 May 2013, Berlin, Germany
re:publica 2013
http://re-publica.de/en/
20-21 June 2013, Lisbon, Portugal
EuroDIG 2013
http://www.eurodig.org/
25-26 June 2013, Barcelona, Spain
9th International Conference on Internet Law & Politics: Big Data:
Challenges and Opportunities.
http://edcp.uoc.edu/symposia/idp2013/?lang=en
25-26 June 2013, Washington, DC, USA
23rd Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference (CFP)
http://www.cfp.org/2013
31 July – 4 August 2013, Geestmerambacht, Netherlands
Observe. Hack. Make. - OHM2013
CfP by 1 May 2013
https://ohm2013.org/
14-15 September 2013, Vienna, Austria
Daten, Netz & Politik 2013 - DNP13
https://dnp13.unwatched.org/
23-26 September 2013, Warsaw, Poland
Public Voice Conference 2013
35th International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners conference
http://www.giodo.gov.pl/259/id_art/762/j/en/
25-27 October 2013, Siegen, Germany
Cyberpeace - FIfF annual Meeting 2013