On Wednesday morning 13 July 2005 UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke met with the European Parliament Committee on Citizens' Rights, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE). His plan to push through data retention during the UK presidency of the European Council, no matter in what pillar, met with great protest. The Social-Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals all referred to the legal advices recommending the issue should be dealt with in the first pillar, i.e. on a directive proposal from the European Commission and with full co-decision from the European Parliament. The liberal rapporteur on data retention, Alexander Alvaro, perhaps used the strongest words when he said "the LIBE Committee was not to be pushed into blind obedience" by the UK.
The influential social-democrat vice-president of the committee, Stavros Lambrinidis, added some very sharp questions about the lack of proof of the effectiveness of biometrics, of ID cards and of data retention. He also questioned the intentions of the JHA Council to deal with data retention without the full democratic scrutiny. Clarke said it didn't matter to him how the decision would be taken, as long as it was during the UK presidency, i.e. before 31 December 2005. He also explained he reached agreement with the European Commissioner for Justice, Frattini, to jointly work out a proposal that could be adopted within that timeframe. He didn't explain how he would deal with a possible rejection by the European Parliament. The group coordinator from the Greens, Kathalijne Buitenweg, immediately reminded Clarke the Parliament would take the Council to court if they proceeded on the third pillar path.
Later, Clarke promised he would share any research into the costs and benefits of data retention with the parliament. So far, EDRI is only aware of two such documents; an analysis of the Dutch usage of traffic data by the police and a document prepared by the UK police. The latter document has not been made publicly available, but the first document hopelessly fails to prove the usefulness and benefits of data retention, given that the police could obtain the necessary data in 'virtually' all investigated files, without any legislation in the Netherlands on data retention. (See EDRI-gram 3.13).
During the European Commission press briefing in the afternoon of 13 July president Barroso said data retention was doubtlessly very important against terrorism, but it had to be based on the appropriate legal basis. Vice-commissioner Frattini explained that the Commission will present a directive proposal on data retention early in September 2005, based on the principles of availability and together with data protection rules about (law enforcement) access to data. Frattini confirmed the agreement with the UK presidency to present this proposal just before the informal JHA Council of 8 September, with the purpose of reaching agreement in the formal JHA Council of 12 October, and said he "was confident the package will be approved before the end of the year." According to the press briefing from the extra JHA council in London on 13 July, all ministers agreed to adopt the framework decision in the meeting of 12 October 2005, thus making it clear they would proceed in the third pillar no matter what.
On 12 July European Digital Rights together with Privacy International sent an urgent letter to the UK presidency and Commissioners Frattini and Reding, urging them to show restraint and not respond to terrorism by endangering the very freedom and democracy these acts are aimed against. The letter was also sent to the EP members of the LIBE and ITRE (Industry) committees. EDRI felt the need to respond urgently after the comments made by mr Clarke in The Observer that data retention could have helped to prevent the attacks, thus pointing at large-scale data-mining on innocent peoples' intimate communications behaviour.
The effectiveness of ubiquitous data retention is still completely unproven. On 13 July 2005 the Financial Times quoted a very sceptical remark from EuroCop. "The result would be that a vast effort is made with little more effect on criminals and terrorists than to slightly irritate them," Heinz Kiefer, president of the European Confederation of Police, said recently."
Provisional notes from the JHA Council (13.07.2005)
http://ue.eu.int/cms3_applications/applications/newsroom/loadDocument....
EDRI press release and letter (in English, French and Spanish, 12.07.2005)
http://www.edri.org/campaigns/dataretention/EDRIletter
Last UK prepared version of the JHA working document on data retention (29.06.2005)
http://www.edri.org/docs/Data-retention-council-draft-29062005.pdf
EDRI-gram 3.13, Dutch study fails to prove usefulness data retention (29.06.2005) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.13/retention
FT, UK pushes emergency debate on internet data (13.07.2005)
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/503cf98a-f36b-11d9-af32-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=,...
On 12 July 2005 the European Commission launched a new proposal for a directive and framework decision on the penal enforcement of intellectual property rights. The Commission proposes to penalise any infringements. According to Franco Frattini, the Commissioner for Justice, "the new measures proposed by the Commission form the criminal law front to the fight against counterfeiting and piracy in Europe." Though officially aimed against criminal organisations, the proposed measures applies to all types of infringements of intellectual property rights. "All intentional infringements of an intellectual property right on a commercial scale, and attempting, aiding or abetting and inciting such infringements are treated as criminal offences."
Member states must at least punish such offences with four years' imprisonment "if the offence involves a criminal organisation or if it jeopardises public health and safety." The applicable fine must be at least EUR 100.000 to EUR 300.000 for cases involving criminal organisations or posing a risk to public health and safety. The proposal allows Member States to apply tougher penalties.
The directive is a followup to the TRIPS agreement, and supplements Directive 2004/48/EC of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights. This directive was the subject of intense scrutiny from digital rights organisations and a heated debate in the European Parliament. The harshest provisions, for example on penalising individual file-sharers, were removed from this directive, but now they return in full weight. The new proposal explains: "In addition to the civil and administrative measures, procedures and remedies provided for in Directive 2004/48/EC, criminal penalties also constitute, in appropriate cases, a means of enforcing intellectual property rights."
As with the 2004 IPR directive, the definition of 'commercial scale' is highly ambivalent. It doesn't require financial benefit, profit, or motive. While Article 61 of TRIPS criminalises 'intentional infringement on a commercial scale', the proposed EU Directive would add the "attempting, aiding and abetting, and inciting such infringements" to the list of offences sending a person to prison. This would allow for the prosecution of makers of file-sharing software, but possibly also to the prosecution of leading industrials promoting a slogan like 'Rip, mix and burn'. Free/Open source software development could be seriously jeopardised as well as generic drug production, by strong-armed legal hassle in stead of civil proceedings.
The proposal is supposed to be a consequence of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. "As regards impact on fundamental rights, it should be emphasised that the direct objective of this initiative is to implement Article 17(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights which states that 'Intellectual property shall be protected'."
Proposal for a directive and framework decision COM(2005)276 (12.07.2005)
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2005/com2005_0...
Commmission press release (12.07.2005)
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/05/906&...
Immediately after the London attacks on 7 July 2005, the National High Tech Crime Unit sent an e-mail to the UK provider association and to the London Internet Exchange asking for voluntary help in preserving traffic data of telephone and internet, but also the contents of e-mails, voice-mails and SMS. Some technicians outside of the UK responded in outrage at this request, comparing the request to asking the Postal Services to photocopy all post and pointed out the technical impossibility of storing tens of millions of e-mails a day.
But the UK ISP world remained extremely silent. Now it turns out the preservation was voluntarily offered by UK ISPA and it also turns out this is not the first time UK ISPs have voluntarily preserved massive amounts of sensitive data on all their customers. After the New York attacks, on 14 September 2001 the UK ISPA already recommended giving in to a preservation request from the Crime Unit. As one anonymous UK ISP remarked in a technical conversation: "they took six months to get back to us, without even mentioning they wanted the data." After that, the ISP deleted the records, because of the massive amount of necessary hard-disk space.
Telephony and internet providers were asked to store the content of email servers; email server logs; radius or other IP address to user resolution logs; pager, SMS and MMS Messages currently on the network's platform; content of voicemail platforms; call data records (includes mobile, fixed line, international gateways & VoIP) and subscriber records.
The explanation offered was: "The investigation into this crime will take many months and it is likely that the significance of specific communications data and current stored content will not become immediately apparent and there is a real risk that important evidence could be lost."
Now that the individual suiciders have been identified within a few days and general investigation is making rapid progress, hopefully the Crime Unit will quickly follow-up on the request and make sure these extremely sensitive data are not stored any longer than necessary for acceptable business purposes.
Unconfirmed rumour has it that Belgian ISPs received a similar request from the UK Crime Unit. It is unlikely they will voluntarily co-operate. Storing the content of communications is in utter violation of EU privacy legislation. Only upon court order may an ISP preserve specified data from individual suspects, if the cybercrime treaty has been implemented. There is no legitimacy in any kind of voluntary preservation, also given the immense privacy and security risks of collecting such massive amounts of data.
In the UK ISPs have been bullied into voluntary data retention measures, in spite of extremely critical comments from the Information Commissioner. In response to a government consultation in 2003 about the government proposal for voluntary retention he said only a statutory obligation would comply with data protection laws, but added "However, the Commissioner is yet to be convinced that there is a need for a communications service provider (CSP) to retain data routinely for the prevention of terrorism, for any longer than the data would be normally retained for its own business purposes."
When the UK failed to pass a specific data retention law through the normal democratic procedures, it seems they managed to convince ISPs they would risk their reputation if they did not voluntarily collaborate with essentially unlawful retention measures. Their attempt to bully the Brussels institutions into legalising this national practice hopefully meets with louder public resistance.
Net industry urged to co-operate following London bombings (11.07.2005)
http://www.theregister.com/2005/07/11/ispa_preservation/
Response Information Commissioner (June 2003)
http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/cms/DocumentUploads/voluntar...
Summary of other responses to the proposal for voluntary data retention (11.09.2003)
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs2/vol_retention_comms_data.html
While the Irish High Court set a precedent on 9 July by ordering two ISPs to hand-over the name and address data of 17 file-sharers, a few days later a Dutch judge forbade the hand-over of contact details of 41 customers. In both cases the music industry used the services of the US-based company MediaSentry.
The Irish High Court allowed for the demand from the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) on behalf of record majors. The ruling is not available online yet, but the Irish Times reports the judge "noted an undertaking by the record companies that the information would be used only for the purpose of seeking redress for alleged infringement of the copyright of sound recordings and granted the order on that basis." The Irish Times also reports that the judge was not impressed by BT's policy to immediately forward any complaints to their customers, with a demand to desist any future activity. Such a policy couldn't 'deprive the plaintiffs of their entitlement to seek damages'. It is expected that IRMA will now write to the 17 individuals accusing the recipient of illegally sharing music using the internet, seeking damages of up to 6.000 euro from each person for breaching copyright law and threatening legal action against anyone who refuses to pay.
A completely different verdict was given in the first Dutch preliminary proceedings against individual file-sharers. On 12 July 2005 the Utrecht court rejected the demand on 5 ISPs to each hand over 10 names and address data of customers suspected of unlawful file-sharing. The use of MediaSentry's services turned out to be the major blocking issue. It is well known, writes the court, "that the United States of America cannot considered to be a country with a fitting level of data protection." The company MediaSentry did not sign a safe harbour agreement, nor did the Dutch anti-piracy organisation 'Brein' apply for a special license with the Dutch data protection authority. MediaSentry searches all files in a users' folder. "Amongst those can be files that do not infringe on somebody else's rights or have a personal character," writes the court, and this makes the data collection extra unlawful. On top of that, Brein made terrible mistakes in the times of the alleged file-sharing. In 3 different letters, different times were mentioned with the IP-addresses, thus possibly leading to a different customer. Since the ISPs had immediately forwarded the first demands from Brein to their users, possibly the wrong people received these intimidating claims.
On 16 April 2004 the Dutch DPA published a decision on the collection of IP addresses by the Dutch anti-piracy organisation. The collection could be lawful if Brein followed specific rules and would not engage any third parties. According to the court under these circumstances the ISPs should have refused the hand-over of any personal data, since they have an obligation to guard over the personal data of their customers and not hand-over unless justified by the law on personal data protection or upon court order.
On the other hand, the Dutch judge also ruled private parties such as Brein may demand personal data in civil proceedings, as long as they can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the IP addresses relate to users that actually offer illegal music or other files on their computer, by meticulously mentioning date and exact time of the infringing acts.
Irish Times, Music uploaders face legal action from record firms (09.07.2005)
-premium content, not available for free-
Response IRMA (09.07.2005)
http://www.irma.ie/index2.htm.
Preliminary proceedings Brein v. 5 ISP's (in Dutch, 12.07.2005)
www.rechtspraak.nl/ljn.asp?ljn=AT9073
The German Upper House approved on 8 July the introduction of biometric passports. The 'ePass' will contain a contactless chip (RFID) that will hold a digital frontal picture of the bearer's face. In the future, two fingerprints, one from each hand, will be included - probably starting in 2007. The issuing of the biometric passports is expected to begin in November 2005.
The picture and fingerprints in the chip will be compared with those of the holder of the passport. This will make it possible to establish that the passport really belongs to the holder. During border checks the data in passport can also be compared to federal police watchlists. Currently, there is no plan in Germany to create a central database to store the biometric data.
To facilitate privacy of the data and secure it against unnoticed reading or capture of the transmission, public-key cryptography will be employed. Reader devices at the border also integrate keys. These shall only live for a few weeks, so that stolen reader devices cannot be successfully used to steal data over a prolonged period of time.
Communication between the reader and the passport starts by optically scanning the machine readable zone (MRZ). An access key is computed from the MRZ and a cryptographically secured channel to the chip is opened. Through it, data stored on the chip is read and the embedded signature verified. Afterwards, the images are optically presented to the user.
The software used by the readers is called 'Golden Reader Tool' and is developed by the Federal Information Security Agency (BSI - part of the Federal Ministry of the Interior) in cooperation with the Federal Criminal Police (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA), Bundesdruckerei (the former federal printing office), Giesecke & Devrient GmbH (the world's largest company for security printing specialising in ID documents and security papers), Cryptovision and Secunet.
The German EDRI-member Chaos Computer Club (CCC) published a manual how to fake the fingerprints used in the biometric passport. The procedure involves coping a fingerprint from a glass and transferring it to a latex dummy that can be used to fool the reader during border check. CCC will demonstrate the tactic during the hacker festival What the Hack (28-31 July 2005 in the Netherlands).
Germany clears biometric passports plan (08.07.2005)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050708.gtgermanyj...
Bundesrat billigt Biometriepass-Verordnung (08.07.2005)
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/61516
How to fake fingerprints? (26.10.2004)
http://www.ccc.de/biometrie/fingerabdruck_kopieren.xml?language=en
What the Hack
http://www.whatthehack.org/
After the recent discovery that the Italian Autistici/Inventati server had been seized by the Italian police and a backdoor had been probably installed to allow for easier monitoring of all communication going through it, looks like another Italian community server could have endured the same fate.
On Monday 27 June 2005, two members of FLUG (Firenze Linux User Group) visited the data centre of Dada S.p.a., in Milan, where the community server of the group is physically housed, in order to move it to another provider.
When the server was put out of the rack, however, it was discovered that the upper lid of the server case was half-opened. At a closer inspection, it was also discovered that the case lid was scratched, as if it had been put out and reinserted into the rack. Worse, the CD-ROM cable was missing, as were the screws that kept the hard disks in place.
Dada S.p.a. was immediately contacted, but its representatives denied any fiddling with the server. Other FLUG members that could have potentially had access to the server farm confirmed that they had not tampered with the server.
Even though a quick forensics analysis of the system showed that no shutdown and reboot operations, besides those that had been planned in the past, had taken place (the hard disks were not "hot swappable", therefore a shutdown of the machine is necessary in order to take them off the server) FLUG decided to consider the server as compromised, as the shutdown/reboot operations could have been erased from the logs.
What is particularly worrying is that the server hosted an anonymous remailer, whose keys and anonymity capabilities could have been compromised. Considering what happened to Autistici/Inventati server - which hosted another anonymous remailer - this possibility is not so far fetched. This begs the question whether a co-ordinated attempt at intercepting anonymous/private communications on the Internet has been ongoing in the past weeks and months.
An interrogation to the relevant ministries will be probably issued in the coming days by Mr Fiorello Cortiana (Green Party).
EDRI-gram 3.13, Autistici/Inventati server seized by the Italian police (29.06.2005)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.13/backdoor
Web page of the Firenze Linux User Group (FLUG)
http://www.firenze.linux.it/
Announcement by FLUG
http://punto-informatico.it/p.asp?i=53755
Photos of the server
http://www.firenze.linux.it/~leandro/compromissione/
(Contribution by Andrea Glorioso, Italian consultant on digital policies)
The US Transportation Security Administration is facing a scandal involving data being swapped forth and back with a private company engaged in data brokering.
As Associated Press reported, the TSA, which is an agency of the US Department of Homeland Security, is not only storing commercial data about domestic air passengers. It has also passed this data on to EagleForce Associate, a company based in Virginia and engaged in data mining. This company matched the data to other sets of data from different sources and burnt it on CDs, which were then sent back to the TSA. The authority reportedly used the CDs for testing terrorist watchlists. This practice concerns only domestic US flights.
But, as part of a deal with the Commission, the Department of Homeland Security is also receiving in advance data of EU passengers on transatlantic flights. The US have promised to treat this data according to EU data protection standards. The Commission has taken this promise as a sufficient guarantee that the data will be treated adequately, which is a legal condition for the data transfer to take place.
But the US Congress has also banned the TSA from ever using commercial data, and the TSA even promised in a legally binding form that the testing would be done only by its contractor. The TSA's disrespect of this promise raises doubts about an adequate treatment of EU passengers' data, which is subject to a similar promise from the Department of Homeland Security.
When asked by journalists, the European Commission denied any comment on possible consequences from the US breach of confidence. According to the press release from the JHA Council of 13 July (see first article) the ministers of Justice and Internal Affairs "call on the Commission to bring forward the proposal on air line passenger name records by October 2005."
EFF, Why isn't Secure Flight grounded? (16.06.2005)
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/003699.php
Secure Flight Hits Turbulence (15.06.2005)
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,67875,00.html
Transportation Security Administration: Secure Flight Program
http://www.tsa.gov/public/display?theme=5&content=09000519800cf3a7
The European Commission wants to create 1 European internet rights clearing house for internet content providers. An in-depth study into the current collective management of copyrights shows that a company that wishes to start an online music business has to seek clearance with 25 national copyright management organisations and has to sell no less than 4.75 million copies of a single song to just recover the cost of the necessary licenses.
The Commission quotes an example from Edima, the organisation representing online music providers. "The direct cost of negotiating one single licence amounts to 9.500 euro (which comprises 20 internal man hours, external legal advice and travel expenses). As mechanical rights and public performance rights in most Member States require separate clearance, the overall cost of the two requisite licences per Member State would amount to almost 19.000 euro. As clearance is required in all 25 EU territories, the cost of obtaining the necessary 50 copyright licenses would amount to 475.000 euro. On the basis that a profit of 0.10 euro can be achieved per download, the online music provider would have to sell 4.75 million downloads merely to recover the cost associated with obtaining the requisite copyright licenses." (p47-48)
The European Commission now proposes a serious reform of rights clearance, following a consultation and a communication in 2004. The Commission concludes that the current territorial system "is a source of considerable inefficiency." In a special feature of Single Market News, the Commission summarises the responses to the consultation: "The 139 replies received in response to 2004 consultation paper demonstrate that copyright is at a crossroads. In the era of electronic dissemination of music, film or text by means of downloading or Internet 'streaming', traditional business models, including remuneration mechanisms that have been designed for the analogue environment, may no longer function in an online environment. (...) Furthermore, electronic media seem to have created a climate of public indifference or even hostility toward the notion of copyright, an indifference which seems to have increased with the wider dissemination of content on the Internet." (p.2)
The new study concludes the online market in Europe is considerably lagging behind the US, due to the inefficiency of rights clearance. While "the available repertoire in Europe has doubled over 12 months to 1 million tracks from January 2004 to January 2005", worldwide the growth has been much stronger, with a tenfold increase in 2004. According to the 2005 IFPI annual report, there are 150 legal music sites available in 20 EU countries, of which "30 services in the UK alone. More than 20 are available in Germany and 10 in France." (p.20-21) But obviously, this growth in the amount of services does not represent a similar growth in the amount of available songs.
The Commission now proposes that every right-holder chooses a single EU rights manager, irrespective of residence or nationality of either the rights-manager or the right-holder. The Commission hopes this new single channel will solve the issues of transparency, "obliging the collecting society to distribute royalties in an equitable manner." The Commission also wants to introduce the principle of non-discrimination, to "introduce a culture of transparency governance as to how rights are collectively managed across EU borders." (p.56)
Perhaps the greatest progress in the availability of online music is the new provision that individual artists should be able to break up the current monolithic contracts with collecting societies, for example to carve out their internet distribution rights from the package, in order for them to legally start their own distribution. "Right-holders should be able to withdraw certain categories of rights (in particular categories of rights linked to online exploitation) from their national CRMs and transfer their administration to a single rights manager of their choice. For that to work, these online rights must be withdrawn from the scope of reciprocal agreements as well." (p.56)
Commission press release (07.07.2005)
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/05/872&...
Study on a community initiative on the cross-border collective management of copyright (07.07.2005)
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/copyright/docs/management/st...
Special feature Single Market News (May 2005)
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/smn/smn37/docs/special-featu...
Communication on the management of Copyright and Related Rights COM(2004) 261 (16.04.2004)
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/cnc/2004/com2004_0261en01.pdf
From 15 to 17 July there will be a (freely accessible) festival on copyleft and creative commons in Barcelona, with talks by Lawrence Lessig, Wikipedia, Cory Doctorow and John Perry Barlow and plenty of workshops, screenings and presentations in the CCCB (Barcelona Contemporary Culture Centre). The festival is devoted to the exploration of non-restrictive alternatives to the current intellectual property regime, new models of copyleft licenses, remix culture, and all the possibilities opened by free culture creation and distribution tools. The organisers, Oscar Abril Ascaso and the Elastico collective, write: "The effects of copyright and the reach of intellectual property laws on the development of culture have become one of the hottest issues in the last few years. Everybody wants to protects culture, but from whom? From the artists? From the consumers? Is culture a luxury item? Can culture be owned? These contradictions are pitting governments and public institutions against each other, companies against their own costumers, rights management societies against their own artists."
Among the national guests, the digital editor José Antonio Millán will explain why the linguistic heritage should be free. The novelist Hernan Casciari will reflect on his experience as a writer in the blogosphere. Pablo Soto, musician, producer and creator of two of the most popular p2p networks, will talk about file-sharing as a promotion tool for musical artists. Bram de Jong, a legend in the field of audio programming, will present his database of free sounds hosted by the Pompeu Fabra university in Barcelona. Amador Fernández-Savater, publisher of Acuarela libros, will explain how to sell books that can be freely photocopied. Jota, singer and guitarrist of "Los Planetas", and Bea, guitarrist of "Nosoträxh", will reveal where musical artists really get their money from. Finally, Jesús Barahona, member of Hispalinux and founder of Barrapunto, will talk about the importance of free software.
The festival offers a special space for downloading free music and texts related to free music and intellectual property, where "everything can be downloaded, burnt, reused, printed, remixed and freely distributed without breaking the law." Another great idea from the organisers is to provide free legal counselling. "Nine lawyers and experts on Intellectual Property will donate an hour of their time to counsel attendants and to clarify any doubt they may entertain about author rights, licenses and copyright."
Festival information
http://www.elastico.net/copyfight/
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If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation, or interest your organisation in sponsorship. We will gladly send you an invoice for any amount above 250 euro to confirm the donation.
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20-22 July 2005, Geneva, Switzerland
Third and final Inter-sessional Intergovernmental Meeting on a Development Agenda for WIPO. This crucial meeting will conclude discussions held by Member States in April and June and is key to the report which the Secretariat must produce for the WIPO General Assemblies in September 2005. EDRI will be represented at the meeting.
http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=8487
28-31 July 2005, Den Bosch, The Netherlands
What The Hack, major open air hacker / internet lifestyle event.
http://www.whatthehack.org/
8 September 2005, Brussels, Belgium
EuroSOCAP Workshop on confidentiality and privacy in healthcare
3 year programme to develop new ethical standards for privacy and patient access to (electronical) files, started on 31 January 2003.
http://www.eurosocap.org/eurosocap-workshop.aspx
12-13 September 2005, Strasbourg, France
CoE Pan-European Forum on Human Rights in the Information Society
http://www.coe.int/T/E/human_rights/media/
5 October 2005, Paris, France, RFID
Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID): Applications and Public Policy Considerations. Conference convened by the Committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy (ICCP) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
1-2 December 2005, London, UK, Patenting Lives
Conference in the Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute. The call for papers closes on 26 August 2005 and invites abstracts on topics such as Access to Knowledge, Consumer Aspects, Public Interest, Public Goods, Public Domain and Human Rights.
http://www.patentinglives.org/conference.htm