The EDRI and XS4ALL petition against data retention has attracted over 50.000 signatures, of which over 20.000 from the Netherlands (where the campaign was launched), over 6.000 from Germany and 5.750 from Finland. Runners-up in the daily country count are Bulgaria and Sweden (over 2.000 each), followed by Spain (almost 2.000), Austria (over 1.500). Italy, the UK, Belgium, France, Slovenia and the US respectively, have each contributed over a 1.000 signatures.

Currently, 77 organisations and companies have signed in support of the petition. The petition is now available in 20 languages.

The campaign continues to invite signatures and support throughout October 2005, when the Commission proposal is debated by the European Parliament. Meanwhile, the Council is still threatening to adopt a framework decision in the last official meeting this year, in December 2005, if the Parliament won't adopt data retention quick enough.

On 28 September 2005 the Dutch Lower House commission on judicial affairs organised a public hearing about data retention, preceding the official debate on the need and usefulness of data retention on 5 October 2005. The commission invited two representatives from law enforcement, one from the telecom and internet world each as well as EDRI-member Bits of Freedom and the national data protection authority.

The MPs asked questions about the need and usefulness of data retention, and wanted to know if the measure was really necessary to fight crime or if less invasive measures could also be adequate, for example data preservation (of individual suspects). Two days before this hearing, the Lower House adopted the law on Computer Criminality II, translating the Cybercrime treaty and adding this quick freeze of data to the extensive Dutch arsenal of law enforcement powers.

On 12 October the Council of ministers of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA Council) will debate about data retention once again, both about the framework decision and about the directive proposal from the European Commission. In response to the final launch of the Commission proposal on 21 September, the UK Presidency of the EU announced it would wait for 2 months for the Commission and Parliament to agree with each other. Otherwise, it would use the last official JHA Council of 1 December 2005 to table the framework decision as an A-item (a decision item). In the last version of the Council proposal, dating from 3 October 2005, this position is described as: "The Presidency is strongly committed to reaching agreement on the substance of the proposal at the October 2005 JHA Council. The Presidency also holds the view that serious consideration will need to be given to the proposal for a Directive on data retention, which the Commission adopted on 21 September 2005."

The EDRI and XS4ALL petition against data retention has attracted over 48.000 signatures, of which over 19.000 from the Netherlands (where the campaign was launched) and over 5.500 from Germany and Finland. Runners-up in the daily country count are Bulgaria and Sweden (over 2.000 each), followed by Austria (over 1.500). Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, Slovenia, the US and the UK have each contributed over a 1.000 signatures.

Currently, 75 organisations and companies have signed in support of the petition. The petition is now available in 20 languages, including Basq, Catalan and Greek.

The campaign continues to invite signatures and support throughout September and possibly October 2005, as long as the political battle between the European Commission and the Council of ministers of Justice

EDRI and a coalition of civil liberty groups has organised a pre-event at the international conference of data protection commissioners on 12 September in Montreux. The aim was to strengthen cooperation between NGOs and official data protection authorities (DPAs). The meeting was well-attended by NGOs, privacy officials and industry representatives and led to promising discussions on how to improve collaboration in the future.

The panel on data retention noticed the interesting development of an emerging "rainbow coalition" between civil liberties groups, DPAs, Internet and telecommunication providers, and the European Parliament. Hielke Hijmans from the Office of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) presented the concerns of the EDPS. He made it clear that "terrorism is not out of this world when you retain data", and while

The European Commission has finally launched its proposal for a directive on data retention. During a press conference today (21 September 2005), commissioner Frattini underlined how important it was that data retention would be decided in the first pillar, by Commission and Parliament and not by the ministers of Justice in the third pillar. Frattini was confident the proposal would be adopted by the European Parliament before the end of the year. But the happy information feeling didn't last until the end of the conference. When asked by a journalist why the Commission did not include failed call attempts, Frattini said that was indeed an omission, and would be one of the first updates to the list. Failed attempts are important, Frattini said, because law enforcement needs very complete

The EDRI and XS4ALL petition against data retention has attracted almost 42.000 signatures, of which over 16.000 from the Netherlands (where the campaign was launched) and over 5.000 from Germany and Finland. Runners-up in the daily country count are Sweden and Bulgaria (almost 2.000 each), followed by Austria (almost 1.500) and Italy (well over 1.000). Belgium, Slovenia and France have each almost reached 1.000 signatures.

Currently, 66 organisations and companies have signed in support of the petition. The petition is now available in 17 languages.

The campaign continues to invite signatures and support throughout September 2005, when EDRI expects a heated political battle between the European Commission and the Council of ministers of Justice and Home Affairs.

Petition
http://www.dataretentionisnosolution.com

European Digital Rights, together with a number of other international digital rights organisations, is organising two panels on data retention and on biometrics, as a pre-event to the annual DPA conference in Montreux, Switzerland on 13 September 2005.

It is widely expected the Chair of the Article 29 Working Party, Peter Schaar, will close the meeting with a vehement statement against the current proposals for data retention. This statement might well follow the lines of a recent opinion written by the Dutch chair of the Data Protection Authority, Jacob Kohnstamm. He specifically addresses the two types of cases which according to the Erasmus study require data retention: International criminal investigations and long-lasting research into organised crime.

Kohnstamm writes: "Where international criminal investigations make very slow progress, streamlining procedures and formalities for obtaining international legal assistance should be pursued energetically. A mandatory extension of the retention period for traffic data does not offer a logical solution to the problem." And when investigating organised crime "one should first check whether this type of investigation is given sufficient priority by the police and the prosecutor's office, before deciding on new far-reaching powers." If the priority is high enough, the police can use many other powers, such as bugging conversations and wiretapping telephone lines, according to Kohnstamm.