On 4 December 2003, Hungary became the fourth country (along with Albania, Croatia and Estonia) to ratify the Cybercrime Convention. Lithuania is the latest country to have signed the Convention (26 June 2003). All 15 EU states have already signed it.

Hungary made an explicit reservation, reserving the right not to apply Article 9, paragraph 2, sub-paragraph b. This means they won't consider a photo to be child pornography if the person depicted only appears to be under 18, but is in fact older.

To enter into force, the Cybercrime Treaty only needs 1 more ratification from a CoE country.

COE overview signatures treaties
http://www.coe.int/T/e/Com/Press/Convention/default.asp

On 4 February 2004 the French Big Brother Awards were presented in a movie theatre in Paris. In the category 'Government' a double award was given to the Ministers of Justice and Internal Affairs, Dominique Perben and Nicolas Sarkozy, for their joined efforts in changing the law on organised crime. The new adaptation (Perben II) introduces a form of plea-bargaining to the French legal system. The law also stretches the interception and remote monitoring powers of law enforcement agencies, allowing them to secretly place microphones and camera's in cars and private homes. According to the jury, the new powers are not limited to the investigation of networks of organised crime, but can also be used on small delinquents and groups like 'young people in cities', 'immigrants' and 'travellers'.

After a tour in the Future Store of the German Metro concern, privacy advocate Katherine Albrecht discovered spy-chips with unique numbers in the customer loyalty cards. She also found RFID tags on products sold in the store that were not completely de-activated after the purchase.

Albrecht, founder of CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) was invited by the German civil liberty group Foebud to lecture about RFIDs and visit the Future Store, that was opened last year to test experimental RFID applications on live shoppers. "We were shocked to find RFID tags in Metro's 'Payback' loyalty card," said Albrecht. "The card application form, brochures, and signage at the store made no mention of the embedded technology and Metro executives spent several hours showing us the store without telling us about it."

The UK civil liberties group Privacy International, in co-operation with European Digital Rights, the Foundation for Information Policy Research and Statewatch, has published an analysis of the EU-US negotiations on the transfer on passenger information (PNR). The report titled 'Transferring Privacy' describes how the European Commission leaves European privacy rights at the mercy of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

According to the report the European Commission has 'not assured adequate protection requirements, clear purpose limitation, non-excessive data collection, limited data retention time, and insurance against further transfers beyond the Department of Homeland Security'. The report also points to the insufficiently independent privacy officers on the US side that will process complaints from EU passengers and a retention period of

MEP Marco Cappato has revealed a letter EU Commissioner Bolkestein sent to Tom Ridge, the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security. The letter was sent on 18 December, only two days after Bolkestein had given his presentation in which he tried to mislead the European Parliament on the true nature of the agreement on the transfer of Air Passengers personal data to U.S. agencies.

Most interesting is the subtone of the letter, in which Bolkestein behaves like an ally of Ridge against the forces wanting to prevent the transfer: "On my return from Strasbourg (...), where the initial reaction from members of the European Parliament was relatively balanced, I would like to thank you once again for your personal commitment (....) to the conclusion of our discussions. I share entirely your view that we have set a good standard here for EU/U.S. cooperation and I hope we can keep it up."

On 28 January 2004, the Italian Lower House approved of a governmental decree-law on mandatory data retention by telephone and internet companies. Government issued the decree on 24 December 2003, without any prior parliamentary debate. All data about electronic communications must now be stored for a period of 5 years.

According to the privacy-group ALCEI, the new law isn't much more restrictive, or mischievous, than rules and practices that were already into force or are likely to follow. "The decree is messy, poorly conceived and confusing - hastily put together to amend the previous one (from June 2003) that made data retention compulsory but (for alleged 'privacy' reasons) set a limit of 30 months."

In the new decree, the retention period is extended from 30 to 60 months. The older data must be separately accessible and usage is limited to particularly serious crimes including kidnapping, organised crime and terrorism, as well as crimes against IT or online systems.

The Russian government is considering a new system of personal registration for all citizens. In 2006 all Russians will be assigned a unique universal identifier. On 15 January 2004 the deputy minister of economical development Andrei Sharonov told journalists that the original proposal had been prepared by his ministry and the government supported this idea. The ID will be printed (most likely as a bar code) in all identifying documents that people obtain from government, like internal passports and driver licenses. Each person will get his/her ID after birth, the rest will get their identifiers gradually when contacting various governmental bodies.

The idea is to make all personal information (including sensitive data like income) available for easy analysis in one commonly accessible data system. Since 1996 at least 18 different government databases have been developed for voting, taxation, social security, medical, military service and other purposes. These databases are not connected with each other. With the new ID system the Russian government hopes to achieve progress in three main spheres: social and pension insurance, taxation and investigation of crimes. It is not clear yet whether all information is to be accumulated in one huge database or connected trough existing bases.

For the fourth consecutive year, French civil liberty activists will present the French Big Brother Awards during an Orwell Party in Paris on Wednesday 4 February 2004. Since Privacy International presented the first Big Brother Awards in 1998 to government agencies, private companies and individuals who have excelled in the violation of privacy, an international tradition has begun. In 2003, the awards were presented in 14 different countries.

Besides the usual 4 categories of products, institutions, governments and companies and the special prize for persons (for a lifetime achievement), the French have added a special Orwell Europe prize to the contest list. The public is invited to nominate candidates that have excelled in violating privacy and generally increasing surveillance. The deadline for nominations is Friday 16 January. In order for the jury to evaluate the facts, nominations must contain solid facts and sources. The jury will publish both the complete list and the selected nominations on 24 January.