(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The Czech Interior Ministry introduced in October 2007 a new National Action Plan to Combat Terrorism that would increase the access of the police and intelligence authorities to personal data, under the pretext of the protection against terrorism.

The Czech Ministry of Interior has introduced a similar plan every year since 2002 - in 2005 it actually won the Czech Big Brother Award for it - which, until now, has been rejected by the Parliament. The Plan of Action is meant to be used to draft legislation allowing police and other agencies to have access to emails and to wiretap without following any court procedures.

"According to the current legal regulations, in order to perform certain

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

ICANN meeting that took place last week (29 October - 2 November 2007) in Los Angeles was expected to decide on the WHOIS database privacy problems. But unfortunately the decision taken was just to make further studies on the matter, despite the already seven years of discussions on this topic.

The need for WHOIS reform has been a hot topic for some years in the civil society and some ICANN structures. An EPIC & NGO Letter to ICANN Board on Need for Whois Reform sent on 30 October 2007 asks "for changes to WHOIS services that would protect the privacy of individuals, specifically the removal of registrants' contact information from the publicly accessible WHOIS database."

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

European Digital Rights Initiative (EDRI) is supporting the letter Privacy International (PI) sent on 5 November 2007 asking the head of the European Commission DG Competition, Commissioner Kroes, to take the merger of Google-Doubleclick to the next phase. PI argues that the merger could have serious implications for privacy innovation in advertising.

The letter explains the problems that the merger could bring to the online advertising market: "Google's purchase of Doubleclick is particularly worrying because it is a significant consolidation in this domain and we worry that this very competition to provide high-quality privacy practices will dissipate. Google's dominant position in the search marketplace will be

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

With its final vote on 23 October 2007, the French Parliament confirmed the introduction of DNA testing in the new immigration law to prove family links for foreign candidates applying for a more than 3 months visa on family regrouping grounds. The only recourse could now be a decision from the French Constitutional Council to remove this provision from the law, since the Parliamentary opposition (Socialists, Communists and Greens), together with some centrist members of Parliament, announced that it would challenge the adopted law before the Constitutional judge.

The final vote occurred after a Parliamentary Commission agreed on the harmonisation of the draft texts resulting from both the National

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Austrian authorities have announced that the police will start from 2008 to use online searches as an investigation tool in order to keep up with the use of new technologies for terrorist and serious crimes. Austria is joining in this way Germany and Switzerland that are working in the same direction, despite serious privacy concerns.

In an interview to the radio station Ö1, Austrian Minister of Internal Affairs, Günther Platte, and the Minister of Justice, Maria Berger, announced this new measure that was proposed to be discussed in the Government meeting. The two politicians explained that the measure will be used only in connection with terrorist cases or other serious crimes, where

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

More than 600 persons from 50 countries gathered in Montreal to participate to the 29th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, on 25-28 September 2007, making this year venue attended by a record number of interested parties. The theme of the conference, 'Privacy Horizons: Terra Incognita', certainly played a role in this attraction. The audience has not been disappointed by presentations and panels indeed exploring currently challenging issues in the field of privacy and data protection, such as nanotechnology, ubiquitous computing, the body as data..., not to mention already well known, but continuously concerning issues like globalization, public safety and the interpenetration between law an

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The Data Protection Commissioner of the German state of Shleswig-Holstein Thilo Weichert publicly opposed the Google's acquisition of Doubleclick in a letter to EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes.

Mr. Weichert declared that: "At present we have to assume that in the event of a takeover of DoubleClick the databases of that company will be integrated into those of Google, with the result that fundamental provisions of the European Data Protection Directive will be violated."

The Commissioner is concerned that creating a user profile and a detailed analysis of personal data will be much easier after the merge. "Such an approach contradicts fundamental data privacy principles of the European

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The European Commission (EC) is concerned about the way the UK has implemented the provisions for protecting personal data, according to information revealed by out-law.com following freedom of information requests.

An investigation has been initiated by the EC three years ago regarding the way the UK legislation has implemented 11 articles of the 34-article European data protection directive. This investigation has been kept secret by the UK authorities, that have concluded through the Ministry of Justice that UK "has implemented the Directive fully."

Dr. Chris Pounder of Pinsent Masons explained the wrong interpretation of the authorities: "All UK Governments involved in implementing the Directive