In documents seen by EDRi, the current Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the European Union made a proposal at the beginning of October to delete the criminal sanctions section of the proposed EU/Canada Free Trade Agreement.

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Deutsch: Details zum Deutschen Staatstrojaner

Some documents spotted by the Annalist blog that were issued by the German Government in July 2012, within a parliamentary enquiry about expenditures by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, clearly show more details about what was revealed a year ago by EDRi member CCC (Chaos Computer Club) - that the German police has been spying and monitoring Skype, Google Mail, MSN Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Facebook communications.

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Deutsch: Google muss seine Datenschutzpraxis verbessern

On 16 October 2012, a letter signed by the 27 European Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) was sent to Google, asking for better privacy practices of the company, accusing Google of illegality and putting into question the viability of the company’s operations within the European legal environment.

Following Google’s decision to update its privacy policy starting with 1 March 2012 by combining about 60 different policies for its online services (search, Gmail, YouTube, Google+, and others ) into a single user privacy agreement, Article 2

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), led by Russian diplomat, Yury Fedotov, has just released a report (pdf) arguing for more surveillance and retention of data on all communications, even in the total absence of suspicion. Coincidentally, the Coordinator of the elegantly named 1267 Committee that was in charge of the report is British – and the British government recently proposed (even if it is likely to be rejected at national level) the most extensive suspicionless monitoring ever considered in a democratic society – the Communications Data Bill.

The report was coincidentally launched just weeks before the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai organised by the United Nations telecommunications agency, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), led by Russian-educated Secretary General Hamadan Touré. Much of the discussion will be about whether and how much new responsibility should be given to the ITU's bureaucracy, which has been losing influence and competences in recent years due to the growth of the Internet. Somewhat surprisingly, the ITU is listed as an “additional partner” on the website of the Working Group on Countering the Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes which was responsible for the UNODC report (lead by the 1267 Committee).

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Deutsch: “CLEAN IT”: Der geheime Überwachungsplan, der keiner war

There was a lot of interest among EU policy wonks and digital rights people last week about an initiative called CLEAN IT, following the leak of its “confidential” draft recommendations. “Police to 'patrol' Facebook and Twitter for terrorists under EU plan” announced the UK’s Daily Telegraph. Cory Doctorow blogged about how an “EU working group” had produced the “stupidest set of proposed Internet rules in the history of the human race”. The blogosphere was soon awash with reports of the new ACTA.

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Deutsch: Türkei plant eindeutige Identifizierung beim Zugang zum Internet

The party in power has been dreaming of following and blacklisting Internet users for a long time by making it obligatory to enter ID number and a password to access the Internet. Such applications are already in force in countries like China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Iran.

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Deutsch: EuGH befasst sich mit biometrischen Reisepässen

The Dutch administrative court asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) whether the EU Regulation obliging member states to store fingerprints in passports and travel documents infringes the right to privacy.

This is a result of four cases in which Dutch applicants had been refused the issuing of their passports because they did not accept to provide their fingerprints.

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Deutsch: Freiheit statt Angst 2012

The 4-day "Freedom Not Fear 2012" (FNF 2012) event came to a successful end on Monday, 17 September 2012.