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Deutsch: Neues SWIFT-Abkommen so schlecht wie das alte

The EU Commission adopted on 15 June 2010 the new agreement with the US Department of Treasury (DoT) on the transfer of data to the DoT's Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP), informally called "SWIFT agreement" because it relies on data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. It had been negotiated since 11 May, after the Council of Ministers adopted a new mandate. The text of the agreement was made public by Statewatch and several MEPs.

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Deutsch: Österreich erhöht Druck auf Google Street View

Austrian Data Protection Authority (DSK) placed a temporary ban on Google's Street View cars, The DSK intends to sanction the collection of private data from unencrypted wifi networks and therefore wants to see changes to the EU data protection directive in this regard.

"If there is no EU legislation, we are planning a national law," stated State secretary for media Josef Ostermayer.

This reaction comes after Google failed to observe the deadline of 27 May imposed by Germany's Hamburg data protection authority to hand over such data that the company admitted to have gathered accidentally by its Street View system.

Go

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Deutsch: EK-Verhandlungsmandat für Datenschutzabkommen zwischen der EU und den...

On 26 May 2010, the European Commission (EC) announced having drafted a mandate for the negotiation of a data protection agreement with the US in view of ensuring a high level of protection of personal information, such as passenger data or financial information transferred within the transatlantic police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters.

"Fundamental rights must be protected and respected at all times.

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Deutsch: Artikel 29-Gruppe fordert mehr Datenschutz von Suchmaschinenbetreibern

In a letter addressed to the three big IT companies Google, Yahoo and Microsoft on 26 May 2010, the EU independent group of privacy regulators Article 29 Working Party (WP29) shows concerns related to data protection issues and urges the companies to improve online privacy.

The group's letter explains that a person's search history contains a footprint of that person's interests, relations, and intentions "and should rightly be treated as highly confidential personal data" and calls for the limitation of the retention period of personal data, a reduction of the possibility to identify users in the sea

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Deutsch: Belgien: Erlangen Sie ihre Privatsphäre zurück!

Retaining telecommunications data, the new law on the Special Intelligence Methods, the use of passenger data from airlines by judicial authorities and the police, and the ubiquity of cameras are but a few examples of measures that violate our right to privacy.

The Liga voor Mensenrechten is deeply worried about the increasing number of violations of the right to privacy. In the past few years, many measures have been taken by the government under the guise of fighting terrorism and serious crime that threaten and erode the privacy of citizens.

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Deutsch: GB: Abbau des Datenbankstaates

The new UK government's coalition agreement includes a list of measures in order "to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion."

This includes the following:

- The scrapping of ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the Contact Point Database.
- Outlawing the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.
- The extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.
- Adopting the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.
- The protecti

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Deutsch: Mazedonien: Neues Gesetz für elektronische Kommunikation verabschiede...

The amendments to the Law on electronic communications would allow the Ministry of Interior to play the "Big Brother" role, concluded the opposition parties during the debate on this bill that took place in the Assembly on 11 May 2010.

According to the allegations of the opposition party SDSM, not only the Ministry of Interior would eavesdrop on telephone conversations without any obstruction, but it would also be authorized to monitor the computers of all Macedonian citizens.

According to the opposition party New Democracy, these amendments are not prepared in accordance with the European stand

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Deutsch: Google: Wir haben über Street View Informationen von WLAN-Netzen gesa...

Google admitted that the previous information on the data they have gathered with their Street View service was wrong and this included "samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected) WiFi networks."

The information comes after several letters were sent to Google by the Data Protection Authorities on the information the company had gathered in their StreetView service.