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According to The Times, a patent application has been filed by Microsoft for a computer software that can monitor the employees' performance and state, by means of wireless sensors linking workers to their computers.

The system, considered by Microsoft a "unique monitoring system", is capable of measuring employees' movements, heart rate, blood pressure, brain signals, body temperature or face expression and can even "automatically detect frustration or stress in the user" and "offer and provide assistance accordingly". This can lead to the creation of psychological profiles and the Unions fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of such profiles.

The Information Commissioner, privacy advocates and civil liberties groups

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Many documents with confidential data including benefit claims, passport photocopies and mortgage payments were found on 17 January 2008 lost on a roundabout near Exeter Airport in Devon, UK.

Mr Karl-Heinz Korzenietz, the finder of the documents, told BBC News: "I thought first of all it was rubbish. But when I looked at the papers I discovered they were highly sensitive. I was shocked and surprised that sensitive papers like this would just be lost like that." Mr Korzenietz has also said that this was the second time he found such kind of documents. On 6 November he found another set of similar documents that he handed over to the Royal Mail depot in Exeter which returned the documents to TNT

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During a hearing of the European Parliament (EP)'s Civil Liberties Committee, on 21 January 2008, serious data protection concerns were raised by the practice of large Internet companies that monitor the online behaviour of their users in order to provide online advertisers with the necessary information to better target their ads.

The main debate turned around the Google-Double Click deal that is now being examined by the European Commission and that was already approved in the US in December 2007 by the Federal Trade Commission.

Google criticised MEPs and rights advocates of trying "to take a privacy case and shoehorn it into a competition law review" but Sophie In 't Veld,

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The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has decided on 29 January 2008 in the case of Productores de Música de España Promusicae vs. Telefónica de España considering that the European law "does not require member states to lay down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings". However, the decision allows the national courts to do that if the national interpretation requires so: "As to those directives, their provisions are relatively general, since they have to be applied to a large number of different situations which may arise in any of the Member States."

The decision came in the case where the Spanish music Association Promusicae asked the ISP Telefonica to hand over the names and addresses of the

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On 26 December 2007, the French government published a decree creating the ELOI file, a database aimed at facilitating the expulsion of illegal migrants. In March 2007, the French highest administrative court cancelled a first attempt by the government to create this file, after 4 French NGOs, among which EDRI member IRIS, filed a case against the Interior ministry.

While the March text was cancelled by the Conseil d'Etat for procedural reasons only, the new version shows some important progress related to concerns raised by the NGOS. The main changes are that no data will be kept on visitors of illegal migrants in retention centres, and that personal data of citizens with which illegal immigrants are staying, when not in retention

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UK-based human rights group Privacy International (PI) published at the end of last year the 2007 ranking assessment of the state of privacy in 47 countries, including all European Union member states.

The raking is based on the Privacy & Human Rights reports produced since 1997 by PI together with US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and is taking into consideration several criteria such as constitutional & statutory protection and privacy enforcement, biometric ID cards, data-sharing, video surveillance, communication interceptions and data retention.

According to the authors, the project wants to "recognize countries in which privacy protection and respect for privacy is nurtured. This is done in the

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The Justice Committee of the UK House of Commons issued on 3 January 2008 a report on public data protection summarising the status and development of the topic, especially since the November 2007 Chancellor's announcement to the Parliament related to the loss of confidential data records of 25 million people by HM Revenue and Customs.

The report that recommends a data breach notification law, criminal penalties for data controllers that are found responsible for breaching security, greater powers and financing for the Information Commissioner's Office, follows the line of the recommendations made by the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee in August 2007 that were rejected at that

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In the context of increasing debates in the European Union over the RFID policy, Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supevisor (EDPS), published on 20 December 2007 his opinion on the growing use of RFID chips in consumer products and other new applications affecting individuals.

EDPS published this opinion as a response to the European Commission's communication on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in Europe that was released in March 2007, but taking into consideration other actions, such as the creation by the EC of the RFID expert group, where EDRi is a member.

Peter Hustinx, explained the role of RFID and its relation with the privacy issues: "RFID systems could play a key role in the development of