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A new amendment proposed by the French Minister of Health Xavier Betrand is considering using the National Identification Record (NIR) as the identifier of a patient in the health sector.

NIR is a unique number of every person in France, included in the national registry of natural persons. Created from data on the civil status of French nationals and residents, the NIR allows indirect identification of a person. It is made of 15 figures, indicating gender, birth year, month and place (municipality or 99 for foreign countries), and registering number of birth in the municipality. The NIR is used by the Social Security Service and by employers in the management of social benefits

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The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Peter Hustinx, has issued a second opinion, following the one issued on 19 December 2005 on the Proposal of the Commission for a Council Framework Decision on the protection of personal data processed in the framework of police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters.

The Commission proposal is presently under discussion within the Council of Ministers and although Hustinx appreciates the attention given by the Council to this proposal, he still voices concerns regarding the outcome of the negotiations.

The text currently discussed has not included the amendments proposed by the European Parliament in a legislative resolution issued on 27

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The UK Information Commissioner has just published a report on the UK Government's plans to link up most of the public-sector databases that contain information on children. The report was written by experts from the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), who conclude that aggregating this data will be both unsafe and illegal.

The report, 'Children's Databases: Safety and Privacy', analyses databases being built to collate information on children in education, youth justice, health, social work and elsewhere. Although linking the databases is supposed to safeguard children, the report's authors point out that extending Britain's child protection systems - from

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On 25 January 2006, the District Court of Darmstadt (Germany) ruled that the German ISP T-Online was legally banned from logging the session IP addresses it assigned to its customers. German law requires this data to be deleted upon termination of the connection as it is not needed for billing purposes. According to the judgement, security requirements do not justify the general logging of all users' IP addresses. The collection of such data is permitted only in reaction to specific incidents (faults or unlawful use) on a case by case basis.

On 28 October 2006 The German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) dismissed, on formal grounds, the appeal filed by T-Online. The District

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A Report on the Surveillance Society: For the Information Commissioner by the Surveillance Studies Network, 2006
http://ico.crl.uk.com/files/Surveillance%20society%20full%20report%20f...

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At the 28th annual Conference of Data Protection and Information Commissioners held on 2-3 November in London, privacy commissioners from ten countries adopted common policies related to the international issue of increased citizen surveillance.

The document adopted by the commissioners, titled "Communicating Data Protection and Making It More Effective", asked for a common support in creating an international convention on data protection, first agreed on by commissioners in 2005.

UK's Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas welcomed the initiative of the commissioners that show concern for the protection of data. He had already warned on the dangers created by the monitoring of individuals' actions in

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United Kingdom has today the largest DNA database in the world, with over 3,5 million DNA samples. These days the Nuffield Council on Bioethics announced starting a public consultation about the new legislation regarding the storage of the DNA samples.

The DNA database was initiated in 1996 with little public consultation and since 2003 anyone arrested by the police had their DNA taken, for crimes going from murder to drink driving. Their DNA samples have been kept even though they have never been officially charged. A Home office report has shown that over 139 000 people, including 24 000 children, are in this situation.

The report also shows that 5,24 % of the UK population has a profile in the

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At the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) a diverse group of stakeholders has agreed to launch a Dynamic Coalition on Privacy, which will address emerging issues of internet privacy protection such as digital identities, the link between privacy and development, and the importance of privacy and anonymity for freedom of expression. It will initiate an open process to further develop and clarify the public policy aspects of privacy in internet governance in the perspective of the next IGF meeting in Brazil in 2007. The group will use online collaboration tools as well as facilitate meetings at related events all over the world throughout the year. Participants in Athens in particular agreed that there is a need for greater public