The Belgian government has announced plans to give every inhabitant of Belgium a free e-mail address. That is, every Belgian can ask for a free e-mail alias that can only be used to communicate with the different governmental authorities. This address will be included in the national population database, alongside with everybodies street address, city and date of birth.

The deputy-minister for 'Government computerisation', Mr Vanvelthoven, wishes to promote government communications with this plan, while at the same time cutting costs and saving the environment.

"We will take care of course that all e-mail addresses will be protected 100 percent", VanVelthoven said. "The protection of privacy is most important. Citizens that wish to be contacted by government, have to communicate an existing e-mail address. We will attach an encrypted alias

On 22 March, the European Union has signed the Council of Europe's Convention on information and legal co-operation concerning 'Information Society Services', without reservation as to ratification.

The aim of this Convention, which was prepared in close co-operation between the Council of Europe and the European Commission, is to improve the exchange of information between all 45 countries in Europe about pending new legislation for the information society. The Council of Europe will act as a clearing-house for draft legislation and provide a harmonised approach to the regulation of on-line services at the pan-European level. Member states of the European Union were already familiar with this obligation, under the 'Transparency' directive (98/48/EC), that allows the Commission to assess draft national

On 4 December 2003, Hungary became the fourth country (along with Albania, Croatia and Estonia) to ratify the Cybercrime Convention. Lithuania is the latest country to have signed the Convention (26 June 2003). All 15 EU states have already signed it.

Hungary made an explicit reservation, reserving the right not to apply Article 9, paragraph 2, sub-paragraph b. This means they won't consider a photo to be child pornography if the person depicted only appears to be under 18, but is in fact older.

To enter into force, the Cybercrime Treaty only needs 1 more ratification from a CoE country.

COE overview signatures treaties
http://www.coe.int/T/e/Com/Press/Convention/default.asp

During the OECD workshop on spam, held in Brussels on 2 and 3 February, the consumer unions of Europe and the USA (united in the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue) presented the results of a survey amongst 21.102 consumers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. 96 percent of the people said that either they hated spam or that it annoyed them. 82% of the respondents said that governments should only allow commercial e-mails to be sent if the recipient has agreed in advance to receive them (opt-in).

In spite of this apparent massive wish for opt-in, representatives from the US Federal Trade Commission defended the new opt-out legislation in the United States. This invoked polite criticism from Commissioner Liikanen and less politely worded responses from representatives from ISPs and consumer associations.

There is not much research done about privacy and digital civil rights in the Baltic EU accession countries (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia). Estonia refers to itself as E-stonia, with the ambition to outclass even Finland as ICT-nation. Groundwork was done by the Open Society Institute in Lithuania, resulting in the report Digital Lithuania in 2001 by Marius P. Saulauskas.

In spite of extreme pessimism about the level of ICT-development in 2001, seventy-four percent of the interviewed Lithuanians felt that the development of an information society would favourably influence the Lithuanian economy. With Parliament reviewing the conclusions, the study has become an important factor in official plans for Lithuania's development over the next 15 years. In cooperation with the Ministry of Economical Affairs, the Institute launched a website to allow people to express their opinions about the development program.