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Deutsch: Europäische Kommission löst Expertengruppe für Datenschutz auf Macedonian: Европската комисија расформира група ...

The European Commission has decided to dismantle a group of experts that needed to review the European Data Protection Directive.

The group was formed after a tendering process and included: Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel for Google, David Hoffman, director of security policy and global privacy officer for Intel; Henriette Tielemans a privacy lawyer from a US law firm, Christopher Kuner, a privacy lawyer with another US law firm;

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After several years of discussions and debates with the EU bodies, the Framework Decision on the protection of personal data processed in the framework of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters was adopted by the Council and published in the Official Journal on 30 December 2008.

The decision is the first horizontal data protection instrument in the field of personal data used by police and judicial authorities and its main purpose is the establish a common level of privacy protection and a high level of security when exchanging personal data.

The European Parliament has already been consulted twice on data protection framework decision: once in September 2

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The intentions of some European Parliament members (MEPs) to introduce in EU a similar law with the Global Online Freedom Act proposed by the US Congress in January 2007, was considered unnecessary and a too "hard law" by Commissioner Viviane Reding.

The US bill is meant to promote freedom of speech on the Internet and prevent US companies from being forced to act like "cyber police".

Article corrected on 27.12.2008 - it was OSCE instead of OECD in paragraph 3.

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On 8 and 9 December 2008, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) held its first Fundamental Rights Conference in Paris. The event examined key issues and challenges related to the freedom of expression.

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The Sweden Government is to pass these days a controversial law that might give the entertainment industry some tools to track down those that illegally share copyrighted material on the Internet.

The law, which is based on the European Union's Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED), has been under debate for more than a year and claims to be essential by the Swedish industry which complains that, presently, Sweden lacks the necessary legislation to support them: " Swedish laws are considered something of a joke and our politicians are viewed as arrogant for not taking this seriously.

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A political agreement on the telecom package was reached by the EU Council on 27 November 2008. Even though the final text does not support the 3 strikes measures proposed by the French Presidency, it has also deleted some important amendments adopted by the European Parliament in order to safeguard the citizen's fundamental rights.

Austria and Denmark have spoken up for keeping the Amendment 138 during the Council meeting. Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland joined them in an attempt to provide safeguards for users in the event of any attempts to sanction them or restrict their access to content on the Internet.

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On 20 October 2008, Hungarian President László Sólyom sent back to the Parliament for reconsideration the adopted law on sharing criminal data that was to be the final agreement between the United States and Hungary on the US visa-waiver program.

Concerned with data protection issues, the President argued that the agreement which authorizes the introduction in a register of all fingerprints including those of the victims of crimes, would give the US too large an access to Hungarian criminal records.

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On 7-8 October 2008 the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) held the first meeting of its Fundamental Rights Platform (FRP) in Vienna.

Representatives from about 100 NGOs and other Fundamental Rights Organisations - EDRi amongst them - were invited to discuss and make suggestions on potential strategic objectives of the Agency and for priorities for the FRA Work Program 2009 and 2010.

The Fundamental Rights Platform is part of FRAs newly defined structure and focus.