The Council of Europe Committee of Ministers has adopted a Declaration on freedom of communication on the internet. The text contains 7 principles that underline the principle of freedom of expression and condemn practices aimed at restricting or controlling internet access, especially for political reasons. Remarkably, the 7th principle is the right of anonymity. "In order to ensure protection against online surveillance and to enhance the free expression of information and ideas, member states should respect the will of users of the Internet not to disclose their identity."

The declaration also deals with the freedom to provide services via the internet and the liability of providers. The provision of services via the internet should not be made subject to specific licence schemes, as still is the case in many countries outside of the European Union, nor should providers be obliged to monitor content on the internet. Closely following articles 12, 13 and 14 of the E-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC), the Council states that service providers should not be held liable for data they are merely transporting. In case of hosting, liability should only begin after the provider has become aware of the illegality of hosted material (to be defined in national law) and does not remove or disable access. Much clearer though than in the E-Commerce Directive, the Council of Europe underlines the need to protect the freedom of expression and the right of users to information.

Last month, during a congress on supermarket logistics, German supermarket Metro AG announced the introduction of RFIDs to boost store efficiency and eliminate long checkout queues. The announcement comes at a time of heightened public awareness of the negative privacy-implications of this new track & trace technology. In March, clothing designer Benetton announced plans to weave radio frequency ID chips into its garments to track its clothes worldwide. After massive protests the plans were postponed and Benetton made it clear that they will first do more research on the use of RFID technology for its garments including an assessment of the related privacy-effects.

RFID-tags are becoming smaller and cheaper everyday. In general the tags are passive.

Romania has implemented the Cybercrime Convention in Title III of the Anticorruption law no 161/2003, published in the Official Monitor no 279 from 21 April 2003. Romania signed the convention in the end of 2001. There are no provisions regarding data retention, even though in some previous versions of the law there was an obligation for service providers to keep all traffic data for 6 months. The Romanian implementation precedes the ratification of the Convention.

In their vote yesterday on the future EU Data Protection Supervisor, the Committee of the European Parliament on Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) produced a very surprising result. Out of 8 possible candidates, a majority of the MEPs voted for the only candidate who has no record of dealing with privacy, data protection or even the protection of any other civil rights.

Joaquín Bayo Delgado has become known to regular readers of the Official Bulletin of the State of Spain as the dean of the university of Barcelona, and that's about it.

The human rights group Privacy International (PI) has announced that it will this year host the first international Big Brother Awards. The Awards, which started in the UK in 1998, were established to 'name and shame' the most relentless government and private sector privacy invaders. They have now become an annual event in fifteen countries. More than thirty national BBA ceremonies have taken place over the past five years.

Privacy International will be staging the awards as an annual event in London on 25 June, on the hundredth birthday of George Orwell, whose novel Nineteen Eighty-Four inspired the name of the award.

According to research by World IT Lawyers, a majority of European websites violates EU directives protecting on-line consumers. More than half of the researched websites lacks essential information about the on-line buying procedure or the consumer right to cancel an order within 7 days. On top of that, almost half of the websites of companies and institutions lack a privacy policy. The research compares websites from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Websites within the EU should comply with several EU directives, such as the Privacy Directives from 1995 and 1997, the E-Commerce Directive and the Directive on long-distance selling. 60 percent of the websites don't explain the exact buying procedure to consumers.

Each year, Privacy International and the Electronic Privacy Information Center review the state of privacy in over fifty countries around the world. The survey examines a wide range of privacy issues including, data protection, telephone tapping, genetic databases, ID systems and freedom of information laws.

Specifically, the 2002 edition of Privacy and Human Rights examines the impact of government proposals after 11 September 2001 on privacy and civil liberties.

Telecommunication companies in Austria have won an important court case against the federal government. Though in general the wiretapping provisions in the new Telecommunications Law were not deemed unconstitutional, from 2004 onwards, government will have to reimburse providers for the costs of procuring and maintaining surveillance equipment.

Full verdict in German (27.02.2003)
http://www.vfgh.gv.at/vfgh/presse/G37-16-02.pdf