In a public answer to a written question by Charlotte Cederschiöld (PPE-DE) on timeframe of the impact assessment of the Data Retention Directive, the European Commission has stated that such an assessment will not take place because " it will not provide any added value".
The European Parliament has adopted on 14 December 2005 a version of the Data Retention Directive, including in the paragraph 2 of the Resolution the necessity of a prior impact study of the directive: "Calls on the Commission for an impact assessment study covering all internal market and consumer protection issues"
The original text of the paragraph, as suggested on 28 November 2005 was " Calls on the Commission, prior to the entry into force of this Directive, to commission an impact assessment study from an independent body representing all stakeholders, covering all internal market and consumer protection issues "
Right after decision of the Parliament, the MEP Charlotte Cederschiöld (PPE-DE) asked the Commission already on 15 December when it intended to begin and complete the impact assessment of the Directive.
The answer, received on 31 January, from the Commission considers that "an impact assessment cannot, at this stage, have an influence on the content of the legal instrument, given the fact that an agreement on the Directive has just been reached between the Council and the Parliament. This means that the legislative process at the European level is completed, and that an additional assessment of the impact of the instrument at the European level will not provide new elements. This is of course without prejudice to the possibility of Member States to carry out an impact assessment with respect to the national implementation of the Directive, given the fact that the Directive does leave some elements of choice to the Member States in the national implementation process."
The answer also makes reference to the evaluation of the Directive, as foreseen in the Article 12 of the adopted text that "will be made within three years after its implementation period."
However, the Commission is considering the set-up of a working group on this matter. "The Directive also provides for an obligation for the Commission to examine all observations communicated by the Member States or the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party. It is expected that further discussions on the issue will also have taken place within the group to be set up by the Commission and to be composed of law enforcement representatives, associations of the electronic communications industry, Parliament representatives and data protection authorities, including the European Data Protection Supervisor (see also Recital 14)."
European Parliament legislative resolution on the proposal for a directive
of the European Parliament and of the Council on the retention of data
processed in connection with the provision of public electronic
communication services (14.12.2005)
http://www.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade3?PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-200...
Question from MEP Charlotte Cederschiöld (PPE-DE) on Data retention
directive (15 12 2005)
http://www.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade3?PROG=QP&L=EN&SORT_ORDER...
Answer given by Mr Frattini on behalf of the Commission on Data retention
Directive ( 31.01.2006)
http://www.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade3?L=EN&OBJID=108637&LEVEL...
EDRI-gram : European parliament adopts data retention directive (18.01.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.1/dataretention
Extended Impact Assements - Annex to the Proposal for a Data Retention
Directive (21.09.2005)
http://europa.eu.int/comm/justice_home/doc_centre/police/doc/sec_2005_...
The OECD held a two day conference ( 30-31 Juanuary 2006) in Rome on "The Future of Digital Economy - Digital Content Creation, Distribution and Access" with over 350 participants from companies, lobby groups, NGOs and governments. These stakeholders debated the issue and discussed how government policy should respond to the change in content production, delivery and use.
The discussion focussed less on the infrastructure and more on the debate about the production of "digital content", as broadband access today is more widespread and so it was considered more important to talk about possible new emerging business models for digital content creation and how governments could contribute to a supportive environment for broadband content.
The topic of Digital Rights Management (DRM) and the protection of intellectual property were often brought up. While there were several very imprecise calls for more protection, there were concerns about the right balance between different interests as well. There was also an acknowledgement about problems involving DRM, especially the concerns about interoperability, which basically means to have a DRM solution that allows moving content from one device to another. Growing consumer concerns against DRM were also brought up, including the question whether government regulation should help to create interoperability and open standards. Unfortunately, there was no real agreement on what to do.
Another topic often discussed was the growing amount of users who are beginning to produce and share digital content online and where DRM is not needed. The topic of new user habits and social attitudes was brought up by several speakers and debated on the panel about new user habits and social attitudes. John B. Horrigan, Associate Director of Pew Internet and American Life Project gave insights to the results of some of their studies on broadband access and online behaviour and mentioned the growing usage of the Internet by broadband users for content creation and entertainment. This was supported by a presentation form David Sifry, President and CEO of Technorati, who talked about the growing importance of blogs and the shift from a consumer economy to what he calls a participatory economy and the BBC Creative Archive project leader Paul Gerhardt, who pointed out the importance of building a new public value by providing content that can be reused by the public.
"Network neutrality" or what some called "business model neutrality" was another hot debated issue, especially when it comes to the involvement of governments as regulator. Michael J. Copps, US Federal Communication Commissioner and others stated that it is not the role of government to pick winners and losers. On the other hand it remains to be seen they keep to these statements, especially in regard to several initiatives like the broadcast flag and others.
Some organisations of artists, civil society and consumers were able to present their opinion, but they should definitely be more integrated and the topic should also be regarded from a broader perspective and not only focused on "digital content" and economy.
The conference didn't end with a consensus, but it rather highlighted some contested areas. Donald Johnston, general secretary of the OECD, concluded that there is still a lot of work, until they are able to write a recommendation on the topic.
Website of the OECD Conference on the Future Digital Economy: Digital
Content Creation, Distribution and Access
http://www.oecd.org/sti/digitalcontent/conference
( Contribution by Daniel Boos - EDRI member - Swiss Internet User Group)
The German version of the worldwide encyclopaedia Wikipedia was offline for three days, after a legal complaint filed by the parents of a hacker who's real name was mentioned online.
Tron was a German hacker and phreaker who found a controversial death in 1998. Amongst other things, Tron broke the security of the German phonecard by producing working clones. He was also known for his diploma thesis where he created the Cryptophon, which was one of the first public implementations of a telephone with built-in voice encryption.
The Berlin court issued a preliminary interdiction on 17 January against access to the German domain www.wikipedia.de, as a redirect to the German Wikipedia version.
The preliminary interdiction did forbid the redirect as long as the family name was online in the article at de.wikipedia.org. However, the public decision of German Wikipedia was to keep the name due the general policy not to interfere with the content of the Wikipedia Encyclopaedia at all.
For 3 days wikipedia.de was offline, but it was still possible to access the German contents through the .org address, hosted in the United States. .
The supporters of Tron's parents tried to solve the matter in an out-of-court settlement, but without success. They have raised questions regarding the conflict of handling personal data in an "open content" system and the fact that Wikipedia does not have a privacy policy in place.
A first decision in this matter will probably be taken at the beginning of February 2006.
Berlin court issues provisional order against the Wikimedia Foundation
(19.01.2006)
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Berlin_court_issues_provisional_order_agai...
German Wikipedia back up amid lawsuit (20.01.2006)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/technology/136...
Tron (hacker) - page on wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_%28hacker%29
Some background material about this case (in German only)
http://www.ccc.de/~andy/CCC/TRON/wikipedia
Two French companies, Warner Music France and the FNAC, were condemned on 10 January by the Paris District Court to pay fines and damages of 5.000 and 59,50 euros respectively, to the consumer protection association UFC - Que Choisir and to a consumer complaining for not having been able to read a Phil Collins CD on a Macintosh computer. The CD had a copy proof system that prevented the duplication but which also made it impossible to read the CD on certain devices.
The Paris court estimated that the respective CD "was affected by a hidden flaw which made it useless for the purpose it had been created", that is "to be read on all types of readers". The court considered the two companies had failed in meeting their obligation to provide information. As a result, Warner Music is forbidden to use a copy-proof system; failing to comply will cost the company 150 euros per day.
UFC-Que Choisir has expressed its satisfaction in a press release that the court had again given priority to private copy exception over the copy-prevention system - two previous similar cases occurred in 2005 judged by Versailles and Paris courts.
According to the consumer protection association "a principle is established by now: the technical protection measures must not be an obstacle to creating a private copy on any means".
FNAC declared that they would appeal the decision.
Warner Music and the FNAC condemned for a too protected CD (French only,
19.01 2006)
http://www.01net.com/editorial/302073/droit/warner-music-et-la-fnac-co...
Private copy : no exception for computers ( French only, 19.01.2006)
http://www.quechoisir.org/Position.jsp;jsessionid=7AC3535FA8E4BE255B28...
EDRI-gram : French court forbids DVD copy protection ( 4.05.2005)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.9/DVD
During the Oxford Media Convention on 19 January 2006, Hon.Tessa Jowell, the UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport expressed the opinion that a European Union plan to introduce Internet regulation was unwelcome, arguing that new media were best left to govern themselves.
The statement comes at a time when the European Union is trying to overhaul the 1989 Television Without Frontiers directive, which sets out a baseline for broadcast regulation across Europe. On 13 December 2005 the Commission presented its draft directive amending the Television without Frontiers Directive (TWF). The proposed changes include amendments that refer to the transmission of the audio-visual content using mobile and internet services.
Ms. Tessa Jowel described the current text of the European Commission proposals for a revised Television Without Frontiers Directive "as a whole ..still unacceptable", "highly bureaucratic", and contrary to the Lisbon Agenda on de-regulation. "If we want further regulation," Ms Jowell said, "then I believe that the best approach is to rely as far as possible on self-regulation."She also stated that the E-Commerce Directive already covers the Internet and that the best solutions are self-regulatory.
On the same day, 19 January 2006, the findings of the study "Co-Regulation Measures in the Media Sector" issued by the European Commission, Directorate Information Society and Media and conducted by the Hans-Bredow-Institute in cooperation with the Institute of European Media Law in Saarbrücken were discussed within a seminar that gathered more than 80 experts in Brussels.
The purpose of the study was to provide an overview of the situation of the co-regulatory measures in the media sector in all 25 Member States and in three non-EU-countries, indicating the areas in which these measures mainly apply, their effects and their consistency with public interest objectives. The study covers different co-regulation measures, including protection of minors in Internet services in several countries.
The participants emphasised the importance of having a precise definition of co-regulation especially in the light of the new TWF proposal. Interested parties are invited to comment on the draft report by the 5 February 2006.
Minister opposes EU plan to regulate Internet (20.01.2006)
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13130-2001048,00.html
Oxford Media Convention - another view (20.01.2006)
http://www.ofcomwatch.co.uk/2006/01/oxford-media-convention-another-vi...
Legislative proposal for the revision of the "Television without Frontiers"
Directive (13.12.2005)
http://europa.eu.int/comm/avpolicy/regul/regul_en.htm#4
TV without Frontiers: Commission proposes modernised rules for digital era
TV and TV-like services (13.12.2005)
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/05/1573...
Presentation of the draft final report "Co-Regulation Measures in the Media
Sector" (20.01.2006)
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/newsroom/cf/itemlongdetail.cf...
Report Co-Regulation Measures in the Media Sector ( 20.01.2006)
http://www.hans-bredow-institut.de/forschung/recht/co-reg/
In a public opinion from 20 January 2006, Mr. Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor, was very critical about the wide access possibilities the European Commission wanted to give to the new Visa Information System. The Commission published its "Proposal for a Council Decision concerning access for consultation of the Visa Information System (VIS)" on 24 November 2005.
VIS will be a central database of all visa applications for most EU countries. The database will be connected to national systems that can be accessed by consulates and similar competent authorities within the Member States.
Mr. Hustinx thinks the Commission pays considerable attention to data protection, but he stresses that access must be granted only under specific circumstances, on a case-by-case basis and with strict safeguards.
In his opinion: "The VIS database will be the biggest cross border one in Europe. Some 20 million new entries per year, regarding people who apply for a Schengen visa, are foreseen. It is of utmost importance that data protection is taken seriously for these, a priori, innocent people".
The suggested database will also keep biometric data for all applicants. This would result in 70 million fingerprint data to be stored in the system for the five-year term set forth in the current VIS Regulation proposal.
Moreover, the EU is considering also introducing biometric data in all ID systems within European Union. During 2005, UK Presidency promised to standardize identity card systems across the EU so that they also include fingerprints and a RFID chip.
Opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor on the Proposal for a
Council Decision concerning access for consultation of the Visa Information
System (VIS) (20.01.2006)
http://www.edps.eu.int/legislation/Opinions_A/06-01-20_Opinion_access_...
EU privacy chief wants tweaks to anti-terror database plan (24.01.2006)
http://www.out-law.com/page-6563
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning access for consultation of the
Visa Information System (VIS) (24.11.2005)
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2005/com2005_0...
EDRI-gram : EU plans database of visa applicants' biometrics (12.01.2005)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.1/biometrics
EU: Biometrics - from visas to passports to ID cards (12.05.2005)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/jul/09eu-passports-id-cards.htm
The French constitutional council judged on 19 January 2006, that the new national anti-terrorism law, submitted by the French Senators, was not anti-constitutional.
The Senators were particularly concerned with two provisions of this law. The first one was the provision allowing the police to obtain communication data without any judicial order, in order to "prevent and punish" acts of terrorism (article 6). The constitutional council only found necessary to remove the word "punish" from the article, otherwise considering the article in compliance with constitution, arguing that prevention is indeed the role of police forces, and finding that enough safeguards were already provided by this article.
The second one was the provision allowing the police to automatically monitor cars on French roads and highways, taking picture of licence plates and people in the cars, with various purposes ranging from the fight against terrorism to the identification of stolen cars (article 8). The same article also provides for the monitoring of street people gathering during "big events". Again, the constitutional council has not found any constitutional problem with this provision.
This new French anti-terrorism law also provides, in its article 7, that the ministry of interior may process PNR (passenger name record) data collected on any travel by air, sea or rail to or from non-EU countries. The constitutionality of this provision has not been challenged. This article has the claimed objective "to improve border controls and to fight against illegal immigration". With this anti-terror law, and under the alibi of the fight against terrorism, France is then directly targeting immigrants and even foreigner residents, especially those from North Africa, since they regularly travel by sea to spend holidays at home. France is now the first EU country to follow the example of the US unilateral decision imposing the transfer of PNR data to US customs and border control authorities, as analysed by French EDRI member IRIS.
French constitutional council decision (only French, 19.01.2006)
http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/decision/2006/2005532/index.htm
IRIS press release (only French, 05.12.2006)
http://www.iris.sgdg.org/info-debat/comm-lettre-pe1205.html
EDRI-gram 4.1: France adopts anti-terrorism law (18.01.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.1/frenchlaw
(Contribution by Meryem Marzouki, EDRI-member IRIS - France)
A High Level Seminar on Racism and the Internet - the 4th Session of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action took place in Geneva, during 16-17 January 2006.
Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, director and founder of Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties prepared a background report for the seminar with the title "Stocktaking on efforts to combat racism on the Internet".
The report makes an attempt to evaluate the possibilities and challenges an Internet user faces in propagating and countering material with a racist content. It tries to provide an overview of the issues under debate, focusing on self-regulation and co-regulation initiatives to combat racism on the Internet.
The report finds that the States have yet to reach a political agreement on how to prevent the use of Internet for racist purposes and on how to promote its use to combat racism. It also finds the efforts in fighting racism are duplicated at the international level, fact which results in delaying the finalisation of policies to address the problems and therefore the implementation of these policies at the national level.
In one of the presentations at the seminar, Ms. Meryem Marzouki, President IRIS (Imaginons un réseau Internet solidaire), expressed her concern regarding the Internet self-regulation and co-regulation means. In her opinion, such ways may result in possible violations of a large range of substantive human rights and freedoms. "Moreover, these newly introduced deliberative and legal procedures are challenging constitutive elements of the rule of law and of democracy." This trend in the control of illegal content, including racist content weakens the role of the judiciary power, while extending the prerogatives of private parties, mainly that of Internet service providers.
In her opinion, the authors of the racist content on the Internet may be punished by normal legal process in a country where such legislation exists and ISPs should help enforcing a court decision of content removal, but should not take the decision of removing content.
The presentation included a few recommendations on the role of ISPs in the fight against racism on the Internet in situations when there is or not specific legislation in force.
Stocktaking on efforts to combat racism on the Internet (16.01.2006)
http://www.cyber-rights.org/reports/ya_un_paper_int_06.pdf
Combating Racism on the Internet while Upholding International Human Rights
Standards (20.01.2006)
http://www-polytic.lip6.fr/article.php3?id_article=127
On Tuesday 24 January the Irish High Court made an order requiring three ISPs to hand over the personal details of 49 alleged file-sharers. This decision follows a similar decision in July 2005, and was made by the same judge (Kelly J.) in essentially identical terms, including an undertaking that the information would only be used for the purpose of litigation. The judge did, however, specify that the plaintiffs could, if they wished, also pass this information to the authorities for criminal prosecution, describing file sharing as "a modern form of thieving".
Digital Rights Ireland wrote to the parties in advance seeking to have two issues brought to the attention of the court: whether users should be notified of the application and given a chance to respond, and whether the use of the US-based MediaSentry was in breach of national data protection laws (as was held in the Dutch decision in Brein). However, not all of these issues were raised in court, and the decision of the court does not address these points.
Full details of the hearing and the decision of the court (25.01.2006)
http://www.digitalrights.ie/2006/01/25/isps-ordered-to-hand-over-user-...
ISPs ordered to disclose customer details (25.01.2006)
http://enn.ie/news.html?code=9665363
EDRI-gram : Two opposing court verdicts on file-sharers (14.07.2005)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.14/p2p
(Contribution by TJ McIntyre, Digital Rights Ireland)
The Slovenian constitutional court issued a decision on 8 December 2005 ascertaining that, in 1996, SOVA (Slovenian intelligence agency) illegally performed eavesdropping to a suspected person later sentenced for unjustified production and trading of drugs. The most aggravating evidences for the defendant were the telephone conversation recordings that SOVA made for the police.
The eavesdropping and recording of telephone conversations were performed in a way that did not exclude the possibility of abuses (montage, erasing, later adding of recordings) and the defence could not examine the transcriptions of the telephone conversations as the documents were labelled as confidential.
From 1993 till 11 April 1997, on the basis of a confidential agreement, SOVA eavesdropped and recorded telephone conversations for the police, which did not have adequate equipment for that.
The Slovenian Constitutional Court wrote : "With the eavesdropping and recording of telephone conversations that was performed by SOVA and not the police, the complainant's right to privacy from article 35 and right to privacy of correspondence from article 37 were violated." ... "the problems the repressive bodies have with technical equipment should not be the reason for such intolerable violation of privacy and privacy of correspondence and other means of communication. Violations of human rights are not allowed in the criminal procedure, not even in the case of "extreme necessity"."
An intriguing fact is that there was no report about that decision of the constitutional court in the major Slovenian media.
The whole text of the decision (in Slovenian language only)
http://odlocitve.us-rs.si/usrs/us-odl.nsf/o/2B1FA4ECCB2DFEE5C12570D900...
(Contribution by Aljaz Marn Privacyblog.net - Slovenia )
Dutch Minister Rita Verdonk for Integration and Immigration won a negative Big Brother Award during the Dutch awards ceremony on 28 January 2006 in De Melkweg in Amsterdam.
Minister Verdonk was awarded the price for having handed-over the status of asylum seeker of rejected applicants to their country of origin, for having denied it repeatedly in parliament and for having later minimised the impact of this information.
The jury considered that the gravity of the privacy violation was underexposed. The information about the applicants' attempt to seek asylum might be life threatening for them in their country of origin.
The nominees beaten by minister Verdonk were Dutch minister of Finance Mr. Zalm and crime reporter Peter R. de Vries. Mr. Zalm was nominated for his recent proposal to give banks and other financial service providers access to the population register data behind the new 'citizen service number', even before the law introducing this number is passed by both houses of parliament. The crime reporter Peter R. de Vries was nominated for having proposed a database with DNA cell-material of all inhabitants of the Netherlands.
Sony BMG won the award in the category Companies. The company installed spyware on 2.6 million audio CDs, intended as copyright protection. When the rootkit was discovered, the company issued a patch. But that made matters even worse. People interested in the patch had to provide many personal details and after the installation the patch secretly set up encrypted communication with Sony BMG.
In the category government institutions, the Flevo hospital earned an award with very poor security of personal data about patients. The hospital embarked on a project to disclose appointments with patients via the Internet, but failed to put adequate access control into place.
In the category 'proposals', the winner was the government idea to put a central database into place with biometric data that would be soon required from every Dutchman requiring a new passport. Starting with August 2006 a picture will be included on the chip and later on fingerprints of both index fingers will be added. The jury was deeply concerned about the surveillance possibilities of such a central database.
For the first time in the 4 years that BBAs have been organised in the Netherlands, the jury decided to present a positive award, the Winston Award, named after the protagonist of Orwell's 1984. The award was given to Prof. Hans Franken, professor in Law and Information Science at the University of Leiden and member of the Senate for the Christian-democrat party for his consistent resistance in the Senate against mandatory data retention.
The ceremony was organised by Bits of Freedom, a Dutch NGO devoted to the defence of digital civil rights. The Dutch ceremony is part of a large international network that started with a ceremony in 1998 in the UK.
Big Brother Award for Dutch immigration minister (28.01.2006)
http://www.bigbrotherawards.nl/index_uk.html
(Contribution by Sjoera Nas, EDRi-member Bits of Freedom - Netherlands)
Security services and the police in UK will have a new power. According to the immigration bill going through the Parliament, airlines will have to give them advanced access to personal online details of all passengers travelling in and out Great Britain. The home secretary, Charles Clarke announced the intention to extend the system to domestic flights as well.
This comes after a three-year pilot system that has been used in Britain for international flights, allowing access to passenger data after the flights left. Home Office stated that access to such information before the flights would have had much better results in stopping any terrorist suspects on board flights in and out Britain.
Certain airlines expressed the fear that such a procedure would increase the check-in time. As an operator assessed, the check-in time might increase by an average of 40 seconds per passenger. This estimation however is made by including the necessary time to fill in the home address and birthplace, information that might be soon available on a machine-readable strip on passengers' identity documents.
The police claim the scheme will enable them to reduce the number of cases innocent passengers are stopped or other types of errors by a more targeted approach.
However, several groups like the NGO Privacy International or the Liberal Democrats expressed their concern regarding the surveillance of domestic passengers. As Alistair Carmichael, the new Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, put it Great Britain was creating "a surveillance infrastructure unparalleled in the free world".
"I am extremely concerned at the suggestion that ordinary people could be put under routine surveillance on domestic flights. Tracking cross-border movements in and out of the UK is necessary for proper immigration control. But there will have to be some pretty compelling arguments before we allow that principle to be extended to every journey inside the UK." said Alistair Carmichael.
Security services and police to get UK air passenger details in advance
(24.01.2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0%2C3858%2C5382063-108958%2C00.html
Current trends in ICT-based public security policies in Europe show a systematic, generalized and global use of control and surveillance technologies. This leads to implementing irreversible technical standards, to long term structuring of an economic sector, to durably established social behaviours, as well as, more globally, to questioning fundamental aspects of the rule of law. The seminar "Role of ICTs in the Evolution of Security Policies in Europe : Implementation Tools or Deep Restructuration Foundations ?" that took place on 27 January 2006 explored how these global tendencies imply profound changes in the social contract.
Presentations available at:
http://www-polytic.lip6.fr/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=29
7 February 2006
Safer Internet Day 2006
The Safer Internet Day will take place across Europe under the
patronage of Commissioner Viviane Reding.
European internet safety network INSAFE
http://www.saferinternet.org
15-17 February 2006, Málaga, Spain
Second Open Source World Conference
http://www.opensourceworldconference.com/malaga06/en/modules/wiwimod/
16-17 February 2006, Geneva, Switzerland
Consultation on convening Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
Please note that all participants to this meeting have to pre-register.
Registration forms should be sent by fax to the IGF Secretariat preferably
by 4 February, but not later than 11 February.
http://www.intgovforum.org/index.htm
20-24 February 2006, Geneva, Switzerland
Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda:
First Session
http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=9643
21-22 February 2006, Copenhagen, Denmark
Where to go from Tunis? Implementation of and follow-up to the World Summit
on the Information Society and the role of Civil Society in this process
http://www.una.dk/wsis
1-3 March 2006, Geneva, Switzerland
WIPO - Open Forum on the draft Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT)
http://www.wipo.int/meetings/2006/scp_of_ge_06/en/
29-30 March, Brussels, Belgium
European Spectrum Management Conference 2006
http://www.epsilonevents.com/pdf/SPECTRUM%20BROCHURE.pdf
2-5 May 2006, Washington, USA, CFP2006
The Sixteenth Conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy welcomes
papers and suggestions for tutorials and panels on all aspects of
computers, freedom, and privacy. Possible topics; intellectual property
and intellectual freedom; copyright versus technologies that make
copying cheap or free; global activism; technology and monopoly;
voting technology and democracy; technology and weapons; ICANN and
Internet governance; borders and censorship; digital divide; biometric
systems; consumer privacy; wireless privacy and security; hacktivism;
digital rights management and privacy; public records and private
lives. The deadline is set on 31 January 2006.
http://www.cfp2006.org
2-4 August 2006, Bregenz, Austria,
2nd International Workshop on Electronic Voting 2006
Co-organized by Council of Europe (CoE) ESF: European Science
Foundation (ESF) within the project TED: Towards Electronic Democracy
International Federation of Integrated Processing, Working Group 8.5
Information Systems in Public Administration, Vienna University of
Economics and Business Administration. The deadline for contributing
papers is set on 24 February 2006. Students may apply for funds to
attend the workshop until 30 June 2006.
http://www.e-voting.cc/stories/1246056/