This article is also available in:
Deutsch: EU-Datenschutzpaket: Fahrplan für das Europaparlament

Last week, on 19 September 2012, the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee discussed the data protection package, in particular the planned timetable.

LIBE is the Committee leading the dossier in the European Parliament and will issue two reports, one on the proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation ( “the Regulation”) and one on the proposal for a Directive “on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of prevent

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Facebook gibt Gesichtserkennungsfunktion in Europa auf

Following pressure from Data Protection offices in EU, Facebook has decided to give up the controversial face recognition feature in EU. The feature used by Facebook was taking information given by users when tagging friends' faces in photo, with the declared purpose to make suggestions on tags for future images, thus making the process simpler and faster.

This comes as a result of the work of the Irish Data Protection Authority (Office of the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland - DPCI) which, in December 2011, perfor

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: CleanIT – Pläne zur Überwachung des Internets im großen Stil

A leaked document from the CleanIT project shows just how far internal discussions in that initiative have drifted away from its publicly stated aims, as well as the most fundamental legal rules that underpin European democracy and the rule of law.

The European Commission-funded CleanIT project claims that it wants to fight terrorism through voluntary self-regulatory measures that defends the rule of law.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Stellungnahme des EDSB zur Asylwerber-Datenbank der EU

On 5 September 2012, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) issued his opinion on the amended Commission proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the establishment of EURODAC database for the comparison of the fingerprints of asylum seekers.

EURODAC was established by an EC regulation on 11 December 2000 concerning the establishment of a database for the comparison of the fingerprints of asylum seekers for the effective application of the Dublin Convention.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Google noch immer in Besitz unrechtmäßig gesammelter Street-View-Dat...

Google admitted, in a letter addressed on 27 July 2012 to UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) as well as to the Irish Data Protection Commission office that it had not yet deleted all the data unlawfully obtained in UK by its Street View cars.

After the discovery in May 2010 that Google had scanned, by means of its Street View cars, the airwaves to identify and map WiFi thus unlawfully obtaining private data, the company was instructed to delete all data thus gathered.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: ETSI-Standard für rechtmäßige Überwachung wirft Datenschutzfragen ...

The draft UK Communication Bill raises new privacy concerns after it has been revealed that the UK has also been driving the development of a European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) standard framework that allows interception of the content of communication as well.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Britisches Schnüffelgesetz könnte Standpunkt der EU-Kommission wider...

The plans of the UK government of increasing the police online surveillance powers under the draft Communications Data Bill (CDB), also known as the “Snoopers’ Chart”, might come into contradiction with the European Commission’s position on citizens’ rights.

If approved, CDB will place innocent citizens under continuous surveillance having all their communications and online activity monitored, all of the time.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Do Not Track: Standpunkt der Europäischen Kommission

The European Commission also got engaged in the discussions on the Do Not Track (DNT) at the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) by sending a letter asking W3C to require browser makers to give DNT options to users when they first install or run a browser, and allow them to change the default.

DNT is a standard mechanism that would signal whether a user wants online advertisers and websites to track his/her online activities.