The Irish Presidency of the European Council has distributed a "discussion paper" on the protection of citizens' personal data ahead of this week's Justice and Home Affairs Council in Dublin. As the first Presidency in this “European Year of the Citizen”, we had every reason to expect the Irish to produce novel ways of protecting citizens. Their first suggestions are definitely novel, but certainly are not protective of citizens' fundamental rights.

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Deutsch: Firmen nutzen Lücke im Datenschutzgesetz

Personal data of internet users are often processed on a legal basis too weak to provide a real protection of the users' right to privacy. On 11 December 2012, EDRi member Bits of Freedom published a report about the flaws of the so-called "legitimate interest" ground as a basis for data processing.

This ground is the last of six grounds included in article 7 of the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC).

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Deutsch: Europäische Kommission: Keine weiteren EU-weiten Datenbanken für Str...

On 7 December 2012, the European Commission issued a communication regarding information exchanges within EU, concluding that no new law enforcement databases were needed presently.

This communication comes as a result of the Stockholm Programme invitation for the Commission to assess the necessity of a European Information Exchange Model based on an evaluation of existing instruments, and it is based on the "Overview of information management in the area of freedom, se

Sometimes, watching the Commission make up its mind on a controversial topic is like watching a sports match. One of these topics is the question of whether it is legal for governments to encourage internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict fundamental rights “voluntarily” or whether they would need a legal basis. The European Home Affairs Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström is certain... that they do, that they don't and that they might... possibly.

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Deutsch: ENDitorial: Was soll denn schon schiefgehen?

With the discussions on the proposed General Data Protection Regulation in full swing and the first published opinions of some European Parliament Committees, several themes of proposed changes emerge.

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Deutsch: Deutsche Regierung plant ausufernde Überwachung der Internetuser

The German government is proposing an amendment to the Telecommunication Act that would allow law enforcement and intelligence agencies to extensively identify Internet users, without any court order or reasonable suspicion of a crime.

The proposed amendment comes as a result of the German Federal Constitutional Court having decided in January 2012 that the rules governing the inquiry of telecommunication data from providers were unconstitutional.

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Deutsch: Niederlande: Zwang zur Entschlüsselung geplant

The Dutch Minister of Justice has sent a letter to the House of Representatives announcing a proposal for legislation that will allow the police to force a suspect to decrypt information that is under investigation in a case of terrorism or sexual abuse of children. The Minister has ignored all major conclusions and recommendations set forth in the report commissioned by his department.

The Dutch House of Representatives has urged the Minister of Justice to investigate the feasibility of such injunction.

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Deutsch: Niederlande: Internationale Koalition fordert Rücknahme der Hacking-P...

An international coalition of more than 40 civil rights organizations and security experts have expressed their “grave concerns” about a Dutch proposal to break into foreign computers and search and delete data.