The European Commission has opened a consultation on the establishment of an EU Fundamental Rights Agency. This consultation follows the decision taken by the European Council in December 2003 to extend the mandate of the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, based in Vienna, to become a Fundamental Rights Agency.

The consultation addresses all non-governmental organisations protecting human rights and all persons involved in the development of protecting fundamental rights in the EU. The deadline expires on 17 December 2004. A proposal for a regulation to establish a Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union will be presented by the Commission in the course of 2005.

EU consultation on fundamental rights (deadline 17.12.2004)
http://europa.eu.int/comm/justice_home/news/consulting_public/fundamen...

President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic has condemned a series of police telephone wiretaps as a 'scandalous' invasion of citizens' privacy after press reports stated that officers listened in on his telephone conversations with a businessman.

Czech newspapers reported that police wiretapped entrepreneur Ranko Pecic, an old friend of Klaus, for four months until March 2004 and could overhear his talks with the president.

President Klaus suggested that Jiri Kolar, president of the state police, should be sacked over his remarks on wiretapping. The police chief had said tapping into private conversations by the authorities should not bother people who are innocent. "I consider what is going on in this country to be really scandalous, and I believe that it is the task of us, all citizens ... who wish for freedom, to really fight against it," Klaus said.

While printer-manufacturer Canon was awarded a Big Brother Award in Germany for secretly adding a unique code to every print-out made on household printing equipment, the practice is very wide-spread. Many laser printers seem to print-out a unique number on every print-out, invisible to the bare eye, measuring only 0,1 millimetre. The Dutch police has admitted to e-zine Webwereld that they have used these marks to detect the sources of print-outs, tracing individual printers through the vendor chain. "We are familiar with this research method," said Ed Kraszewski of the Dutch national police agency KLPD. "We are using it in our research and it has proven to be successful in the past."

Even though the spokesman would not give any further details on these successes, anonymous sources confirmed to Webwereld that the Dutch Railway Police, part of the KLPD, is investigating a gang that could be counterfeiting tickets on a large scale.

Last week Big Brother Awards were presented in 3 different countries to a wide range of government officials, companies and institutions for violating privacy and promoting extensive control over citizens lives.

Seville in Spain hosted the 50st BBA event held worldwide on 30 October 2004, 6 years since Privacy International invented the ceremony in London. The Spanish jury awarded Zara, a fashion clothing store chain belonging to giant Inditex, for using RFID chips in some of their products. The Spanish jury also awarded a price to the shadow-government ordering the confiscation of servers of Indymedia in London. Shadow-government because "unfortunately, we are still to be told who that government is."

In Austria, a remarkable peoples price was awarded to the electric company of the city of Linz, for trying to stifle critics. Radio technicians discovered the powerline-technology could produce radio-interference. The technicians were not invited to discuss and help solve the issue, but sued for 'damage of credit', with a very intimidating demand for compensation of financial damages. On top of that a lawyer of the Linz Strom GmbH intervened in his role as member of the supervisory board of an Austrian media company to prevent the criticism from being spread.

On 25 October 2004 Members of the Europarliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) voted on a proposal from the Council of Ministers to include a biometric identifier in EU passports and visas of travellers with EU destinations. While the MEPs were discussing the technical implications and privacy guarantees, behind their back the Council replaced the proposal by a more extreme proposal to include 2 biometric identifiers, instead of just one.

According to the new Council proposal, member states have to include digitalised fingerprints and a face scan on the RFID chip embedded in the travel documents. Face scans will have to be included in travel documents 18 months after the Council regulations enter into force (Germany will already start issuing biometric passports at the end of 2005), fingerprints will follow 18 months later.

In October 2004 the European Commission organised a consultation on the review of EU legislation on copyright and related rights. EDRI sent in an evaluation, together with FIPR (UK) and VOSN (NL). The paper is available at: http://www.edri.org/docs/edri_copyright_consultation.pdf

The European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) will vote today in Strasbourg on two important reports on the introduction of biometric identifiers in EU travel documents. Both reports - on "Visas, residence permits: uniform format, photo, biometric identification" and on "Biometrics in EU citizens' passports" are shepherded by MEP Carlos Coelho, a member of the Conservative Group from Portugal.

But even while the Parliament is preparing to vote on the report, the European Council is dealing with a proposal that would make the Parliament's vote void, requiring all Member States to take fingerprints off all of their citizens applying for EU travel documents. The European Union's Justice and Home Affairs Ministers, who are meeting today in Luxembourg, are even discussing an extremist proposal from Britain and Germany to introduce iris scans as a third identifier that Member States may introduce if they chose to do so.

Since 30 September 2004, all visitors to the United States are electronically face-scanned and fingerprinted at the US border. This 'biometric' information, together with a mass of associated personal data, can be shared throughout the US government. Personal files can also be shared internationally. These measures are part of an unprecedented traveller surveillance and profiling system that within fifteen years may encompass data on a billion people.

Privacy International has published an alarming report about the challenges US-VISIT poses to civil liberties, with a comprehensive flow-chart showing the detailed workings of the program.

Privacy International condemns the U.S.-VISIT Programme (28.09.2004)
http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-7...