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The Lisbon Treaty was signed in December 2007. Notwithstanding the many critics raised by this Treaty, the text, when ratified by all member States, will bring two major improvements to the EU and its citizens. First, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union will become part of the Community acquis, including its articles 7 (Respect for private and family life) and 8 (Protection of personal data). Secondly, the Treaty will allow the accession of the EU to the European Convention on Human Rights and, hence, will give EU citizens the possibility of being protected against abuses of their human rights by EU institutions. This improvement would be much welcome, especially - though not exclusively - considering the

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Last year has seen an increased number attempts from government bodies to extend their powers and make it easier to access people's private information. To name a few, there were legal proposals to increase the number of agencies authorized to access and process electronic communication data collected by telecommunication companies under the Data Retention law, national DNA database enlargement, plans for various administrative database sharing, introduction of even more CCTV systems and the pressure on air travel operators to share records about their passengers. The introduction of biometric into travel documents data as a mean of identification and the use of contactless chip technologies

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Privacy International in a coalition with over 50 other organisations from around the world, including EDRI, is in the process of appealing for the imminent implementation of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act by the Japan's Ministry of Justice. The act will make fingerprint and face-scan compulsory for Japan's visitors and foreign residents. The campaign will be launched later this week.

If any organisation wants to endorse this privacy campaign, please contact as soon as possible Gus Hosein - Privacy International - gus at privacy.org.

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The European Commission(EC) put forward on 6 November 2007 a PNR plan that is almost similar to the EU-USA PNR (Passenger Name Records) agreement. The EU PNR plan is part of a new package of proposals "aimed at improving the EU's capabilities in the fight against terrorism."

According to this proposal, EU will have to collect 19 pieces of personal data on air passengers coming into and leaving the EU space, including phone number, e-mail address, travel agent, full itinerary, billing data and baggage information. The information will be collected in analysis units that will make a "risk assessment" of the traveller, which could lead to the questioning or even refusal of the entry. The data is to be kept for

In some recently published documents, Statewatch revealed that very soon after the EU-USA agreement on PNR (passenger name record) was signed on 28 June 2007, the US government announced some changes in its Privacy Act that give exemptions from responding to request for personal information held to DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and ATS (Automated Targeting System). US Government also sent a written request to the Council of EU to agree on keeping secret all the documents on the negotiations for at least 10 years.

The declared purpose of the above-mentioned exemptions is for "national security, law enforcement, immigration and intelligence activities. These exemptions are needed to protect information relating to DHS investigatory and enforcement activities from disclosure to subjects or others related to

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On the 18 July 2007, the Czech government approved, with signficant reservations, the new PNR agreement prepared by the European Commission with the US Department for Homeland Security (DHS).

During the short period of consultations among the Czech authorities and politicians on the new agreement, the Czech Data Protection Authority stated that the current proposal deteriorated the level of protection of personal data. The Czech Data Protection Authority however did not clearly oppose the new agreement.

Following the EDRi-member Iuridicum Remedium lobbing activities, the Green Party MP Katerina Jacques took up the position of the privacy activists group and pushed for stricter and more binding assurances to protect data of

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On 10 July 2007 the members of the European Parliament (EP) adopted with an overwhelming majority, close to 90%, a Resolution that heavily criticizes the new PNR agreement struck by the European Commission with the US Department for Homeland Security (DHS), considering it "substantively flawed", in particular by "open and vague definitions and multiple possibilities for exception".

The EP considers that the new deal still fails to offer an adequate level of data protection and that it has been concluded without any involvement of parliaments from both sides, lacking democratic oversight. The resolution explains what are the main weak points of the agreement:

a. The handling, collection, use and storage of personal data from air

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After a long and difficult period of negotiations, on 28-29 June 2007, final agreements were reached between EU and USA on the data regarding European financial transactions operated by Belgian consortium SWIFT and on the passenger name records (PNR) issue respectively.

Regarding the access to financial data from SWIFT, the US has committed to use any data received from SWIFT exclusively for counter-terrorism purposes, the data retention period being of 5 years.

SWIFT is also bound to "adequately" protect the privacy of data according to EU principles as laid out in 2000 and further more, from now on, all banks using SWIFT will have to inform their customers about any transfers of their