On 22 November 2005 the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice has advised to annul the EU-US agreement on the transfer of passenger data. The AG does not answer the privacy-questions raised by the European Parliament, but finds the agreement unacceptable under the subsidiarity rule of the European Union. Only the member states should decide on these matters, not the European Commission.

US Customs have had access to the passenger lists of Europeans flying to the US since May 2004. European commissioner Frattini promised to send the European Parliament an evaluation in May 2005, but nothing has surfaced yet.

The full court ruling will follow early in 2006. The court might still come up with a ruling that addresses the privacy-issue.

The court press release (available in different languages)

European Digital Rights and Privacy International are urgently calling on the individual members of the European Parliament to reject the misguided compromise proposal on data retention. Party leaders of the christian-democrats and social-democrats in the parliament have agreed behind closed doors to allow for mandatory data retention of telephony and internet data for a period of 6 to 24 months, with even longer terms at the individual discretion of every member state, including the purpose of 'prevention of criminal offences'. This compromise completely overrules the suggestions of the appropriate parliamentary LIBE committee and ignores all the legal and technical objections against the inclusion of location and internet data.

On Tuesday 6 December the open letter will be offered to all 731 members of the European Parliament, endorsed by many digital rights groups, providers, consumer unions and other concerned parties. The full list of endorsements will be available on Tuesday afternoon 6 December.

Behind closed doors, representatives of the Council of Ministers of Justice (JHA Council), representatives from the Commission and the leaders in the European Parliament of the social-democrat and christian-democrat groups have agreed to introduce an unprecedented law (directive) on mandatory data retention in the EU. The groups have agreed to introduce mandatory retention for fixed and mobile telephony data and for internet log-in-log-off, for e-mail records and for Voice over IP records. There is only one last formal hurdle; the plenary vote in the European Parliament on Monday evening 12 December 2005.

But in practice this vote hardly has any meaning, given the majority adoption of the principles of extensive data retention. The agreed minimum period is 6 month, the maximum period 24 months. But member states may also decide on any longer term they find necessary, including the new 15 years proposal from the Polish government (see article 3 in this EDRI-gram). This is foreseen by the new article 11: "A Member State facing particular circumstances warranting an extension for a limited period of the maximum retention period referred to in Article 7 may take the necessary (...) measures. The Member State shall immediately notify the Commission and inform the other Member States of the measures taken by virtue of this Article and indicate the grounds for introducing them."

On the closing day of the Summit, Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media and Catherine Trautmann, Member of the European Parliament co-hosted a Workshop on "Human Rights and the Information Society". Trautmann (Social Democrats) also was the special rapporteur on the WSIS for the European Parliament. Her report was adopted in plenary on 23 June 2005.

Speakers included: Ambeyi Ligabo, UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Catherine Trautmann from the EU Parliament, Sidiki Kaba, president of the International League of Human Rights, Sharon Hom from Human Rights in China, and Rikke Frank Jørgensen, Danish Human Rights Institute and author of this contribution.

The purpose of the workshop was to cover a range of issues pertaining to

The European Data Protection Supervisor has started an e-mail newsletter to inform a general public about his activities such as opinions, policy papers and publications.

The October newsletter contains brief information and links to the EDPS's involvement in PNR and the Visa Information System. The newsletter also mentions a policy paper on the conflict between two fundamental rights: access to information and data protection.

European Data Protection Supervisor newsletter
http://www.edps.eu.int/publications/newsletter_en.htm

The European Ombudsman (Mr Diamandouros) has come out in support of those calling for EU ministers to legislate in a more transparent manner. His report follows a call from a group of influential British MEPs on the UK to push for more openness, according to an article in EU Observer. "They pointed out that the EU is the only legislature in the world, except North Korea, that still makes laws in secret."

The European Constitution would have obliged the Council to open their doors, but many ministers have wilfully misinterpreted the rejection of the Constitution as a signal against public control on their decision making processes. The Ombudsman already sees enough legal ground in an earlier vital EU agreement; in Article 1 (2) of the Treaty on the European Union (as amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997).

Charles Clarke from the UK Home Office uttered some incredibly harsh threats to the European Parliament committee on civil liberties (LIBE) on 13 October, the day after the Council meeting, but his barking could not conceal the fact the ministers of Justice and Home Affairs did not have any teeth to bite with. Several national parliaments (Germany, Austria, the Netherlands) have not given their ministers the go-ahead on the framework decision on data retention. But according to Council conclusions, "The Council agreed to revert to this issue at its next meeting with a view to a final decision before the end of the year."

Clarke obviously thought it was a good strategy to try to intimidate the MEPs. If they didn't agree before December in first (and last!) reading on introducing data retention, he said, the ministers would pull out the

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on its program to digitise the collections of European libraries. The program on digital libraries is a response to a letter sent in April this year by six European presidents and priministers to create a virtual European library.

On 30 September the Commission adopted a Communication on the topic and published an accompanying staff working paper. In this Communication the Commission explains the link with Google's digitisation initiative. "Digitisation activities exist in all the Member States, but efforts are fragmented and progress has been relatively slow. This was underlined by the announcement of the Google initiative to digitise 15 million books from four major libraries in the US and one in Europe. If realised as planned, the Google initiative by far exceeds the efforts at national level in any of the Member States."