On 12 September the moratorium expires on the transfer of European passenger-data to the United States. Already harsh words are being exchanged between EU institutions, one of the last realms of diplomatic kindness. "The violation of EU legislation is continuing and with it the rights of European citizens are being violated." This judgement from an official Working Document of the European Parliament is aimed at the Commission, which, according to the document, "in the 6 months since the adoption of Parliament's resolution (on the transfer of Airline Passenger's PNR data to U.S. authorities) has made very little progress with regard to ensuring that EU data protection legislation is observed". Still, the EP rapporteur, Dutch Liberal Johanna Boogerd-Quaak, continues, "Your rapporteur believes that the US commitments do not offer adequate

A few days ago, the Sunday Times revealed plans from British government officials to fit all cars in Britain with personalised spy-chips. The micro-chip will automatically report a wide range of offences including speeding, road tax evasion and illegal parking. Roadside sensors will be able to monitor all private cars wherever they travel.

But plans for Electronic Vehicle Identification (EVI) are not limited to the UK. The European Directorate General Energy and Transport aims to develop a standardised electronic, unique identifier for motor vehicles, interoperable all over Europe. In December 2002 the Commission gave a grant to the umbrella organisation ERTICO (made up of different stake-holders in the field of implementation of transport telematics systems and services) to do a feasibility study. Results are expected in

The EU Commission is preparing the last steps in it's antitrust probe against Microsoft. The Commission has been investigating Microsoft practices since 2000 following a complaint by Sun Microsystems. Sun accused Microsoft of abusing its dominant position in the market by not releasing crucial information on the communication between computers and servers running MS Windows. The Commission is also investigating the tying of Windows media player into the Windows operating system. This makes competition from other media players difficult.

Mario Monti, the Competition Commissioner, already revealed that additional investigations have confirmed earlier findings that Microsoft has abused its dominant position to weaken competition in the low-end server and media player markets.

International technical standards bodies (ISO) and civil aviation bodies (ICAO) are preparing plans for 'globally interoperable machine readable passports'. The technology should consist of RFIDs (Radio Frequency Identification) that contain 'details that enable the machine-assisted identification of the presenter'. These technical descriptions point at passports that can transmit biometric data over a radio frequency.

The organizations aim at 'fast-track deployment' presumably because of an October 2004 deadline. By that time the USA demand biometric data in passports issued by countries whose citizens normally don't need visa for travelling to the States, such as most EU countries. The US Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act of 2002 states that those countries must have a program to issue "machine-readable passports that are tamper-resistant and incorporate biometric identifiers that comply with applicable biometric identifiers standards established by the International Civil Aviation Organization".

A proposal to hasten the plenary vote about the EU Software Patent directive was stopped just in time. The voting date now remains set at the 1st of September. The extra time seems extra important now that the public debate about the implications of this directive has only just taken of.

Last Monday, the French Social Democrat Michel Rocard, president of the EP Culture Committee and former prime minister of France, showed himself an avid opponent of the directive in an interview with the French Daily Liberation.

In a remarkably high-speed procedure, the EU Council plans to oblige all Member States of the Union to introduce chips containing biometric data on their passports within little less than a year. Allegedly, this step is taken to meet a U.S. deadline set on 26 October 2004. After that date, according to a law passed eight months after the 11 September attacks, the U.S will demand visas from all travellers entering the U.S. who don't have DNA code, fingerprints, or iris scans embedded in their travel documents.

It is an open secret however, that the filing of biometric features and their inclusion on personal documents have for a long time been on the wishlist of EU law enforcement officials, in particular those associated with the Schengen Information System (SIS). The EU itself plans to introduce biometric data on visas and residence permits for third country nationals, as part of its fight against illegal immigrants. These data will be stored in the SIS, apparently along with biometric data of EU citizens who have come into conflict with the law.

The draft European Constitution was presented in May 2003. The proposed treaty contains a section on Fundamental Rights and Citizenship of the Union. The European Charter of Fundamental rights, which was adopted at the Nice summit, in 2000, will be an integral part of the treaty (section II, article 5, paragraph 1).

The right of every individual to the protection of his or her personal data will be stated twice in the treaty. In Article 36a, it says: "Everyone has the right to the protection of personal data concerning him or her", a phrase which is literally adopted from the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The list of candidates for the new post of EU Data Protection Supervisor and Deputy Supervisor is shrinking. Joaquín Bayo Delgado, the contested candidate of a Conservative-Social Democrat alliance in the European Parliament (EP) risks to get pushed out of it. Bayo Delgado, the Dean of the Judges of Barcelona, will, as it seems, not be accepted by the European Council’s Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper). On 20 May, Coreper came forward with a list of four candidates. They didn't indicate what candidate they preferred as Supervisor and which as Deputy. This list differed from the list of the EP Civil Liberties (LIBE) Committee (see EDRi-gram Number 9) only in one person: instead of Bayo Delgado it favours OECD Data Protection Commissioner Anne Carblanc. Despite the efforts of the chair of the LIBE Committee, Jorge Salvador Hernández Mollár, Coreper has up to now refused to redraft its list to include Bayo Delgado, who had won a test vote in the LIBE Committee with a margin of five votes. After its session on 28 May, when some members of parliament expected a redrafted list of Council candidates, Coreper remained remarkably tight-lipped on the issue.