(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

--- Version corrected on 24.04.2008---

According to a couple of Eurobarometer surveys on data protection, issued by the European Commission on 17 April 2008, EU citizens have little faith in the security of data transmission on the Internet.

Two surveys were conducted by Gallup in January 2008, investigating the perceptions on data protection among EU citizens and data controllers respectively. The surveys involved about 27000 EU citizens and 5000 companies from all 27 member states.

The findings of the surveys show that 82% of European Internet users have little trust in personal data management on the Internet and 64% of EU citizens are concerned about data protection issues feeling that the

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has issued his opinion on the new draft text of the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications (ePrivacy Directive) as proposed by the European Commission.

One of the important changes supported by the EDPS with the new text is the creation of a mandatory security breach notification system. The system should require the Telecoms and ISPs to notify their customers when personal information has been lost. But Peter Hustinx wants to go further and asked for the system to apply not only to "providers of public electronic communication services in public networks but also to other actors, especially to providers of information society services which process

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Article 29 Working Party - Opinion on data protection issues related to search engines
http://www.cbpweb.nl/downloads_int/Opinie%20WP29%20zoekmachines.pdf

New issue of Surveillance and Society: Surveillance and Inequality
http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/journalv5i3.html

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

EDPS Opinion on biometrics in passports: exemptions welcomed but unsatisfactory

The EDPS welcomes the introduction of exemptions from giving fingerprints based on the age of the person or his/her inability to provide fingerprints. These exemptions are part of the fallback procedures that should be implemented. However, the EDPS still considers these exemptions as insufficient to remedy the imperfections of biometrics, such as the impact of misidentification or failure to enrol.

Peter Hustinx, EDPS, says: "The fact that the Commission took into account the need for fallback procedures, stated in previous opinions, is more than welcomed. These exemptions are however still unsatisfactory. They fail to

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Czech Republic Interior Minister Ivan Langer and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff signed on 26 February 2008 in Washington D.C. the Memorandum of Understanding which is the first step in introducing new electronic visa programme for all EU countries.

In this Memorandum Czech authorities agreed to "passenger and other information sharing, screening information concerning known or suspected terrorists, information to combat terrorism and serious crime, and information on migration matters" with the US authorities and also promised to "allow for the further dissemination of transferred information within the United States Government". Czech Ministry of Interior agreed "to provide

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

A large controversy has been lately spurred in the UK by the new technology Phorm, which can track users' online surfing habits in order to better target ads.

The Phorm system is apparently meant to assign a unique identifying number to a user's browser, which, according to the developing company, cannot be associated with the user's IP address, not even the ISP. Then, it uses information on the user's surfing habits obtained by searching for key words on the requested URLs and visited websites and assigns that unique number to various "channels". When a website with a "Phorm please put an ad in here" tag is visited, Phorm provides an ad from a channel where the user's unique

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali) issued a press release on 13 March 2008, explaining that the private companies can't systematically monitor the activities of peer-to-peer (P2P) users that share files on the Internet, for the purpose of identifying and suing them.

The decision was taken on 28 February 2008 in the very controversial Peppermint case.

Peppermint is a German record label that has been using since 2007 the services of a Swiss company, Logistep, in order to gather IP addresses of Italian users that allegedly shared copyrighted files via peer-to-peer software.

The company asked an Italian judge to obtain the details on more than 3000

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Following the legal action initiated on 14 February by several individual teachers and SNES-FS union, a French court ordered on 3 March 2008 to Note2be.com to eliminate from their site the names of the teachers graded by students.

The site, launched on 30 January 2008, that allowed students to grade and evaluate their teachers, got immediate vivid reactions from the Ministry of Education, teachers and parents accusing the site of breaching privacy and inciting "to public disorder".

The court decided the site could no longer identify the teachers by name, asked the site to pay a symbolic 1 euro fine and the legal expenses for some of the teachers that were part of the case and advised the site owners they