In Romania, 4 parliamentarians from the (opposition) Social Democrat Party (PSD) have initiated a draft law to drastically extend wiretapping powers in cases of defending national security. According to the draft law the interception of communications would be possible without a warrant from a judge in some cases.

In special cases that involve the national security, the interception could start right away. Authorisation for the interception for communications should be requested from a judge in maximum 48 hours after the interception started. The draft law explicitly refuses the right to appeal to any communications interception authorisation. The MPs also wish to drop the demand for a warrant if someone is testing new interception equipment or just making improvements to the interception equipment.

The German Constitutional Court has outlawed a special security law of the state of Niedersachsen that allowed police to wiretap telephone connections without any specific suspicion, as well as collect traffic data, GSM location data, e-mail and SMS traffic. The ruling also affects the state of Thuringen, with a similar law, and Bavaria, currently developing a similar law.

The Court outlines that under the German constitution interception is only possible under strict conditions. The security law is too vague (not specific enough and not enough standardised) and doesn't guarantee that completely private conversations are excluded or immediately deleted from the record. Preventive interception can only be lawful according to the Court if there are specific indications pointing to the preparation or planning of a criminal act.

On 15 July 2005 the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights presented its annual report on the state of fundamental rights in the EU. The analysis is presented in two lengthy documents. In the Synthesis report, with conclusions and recommendations, the network recommends the creation of a new directive on privacy and employment relations.

From the chapter on the protection of personal data (p. 52-56): "There is a proliferation in the technical mechanisms to help the employer take decisions in the management of persons who are applying for a job or who, once the employment contract has been concluded, are under his control or direction. These include personality and intelligence tests that are used in the recruitment process and that are generated by special software, the recording of recruitment interviews in order to allow evaluation by other persons than the interviewer or to notice more precisely the reactions of the interviewee, the systems for monitoring workers in the workplace – for example through the use of video surveillance or counting or measuring the work by computer -, the use of security badges allowing the identification of staff as well as their location on the company premises at any time. It is important that a Community initiative is taken soon in order to harmonize the way in which the Member States regulate those practices."

The renowned US civil rights organisation ACLU has sent out an alarming press release about FBI-surveillance of their activities and of other renowned peaceful groups such as Greenpeace and United for Peace and Justice. The FBI has collected more than 1.100 pages of documents on the ACLU since 2001 and the ACLU is urging the court to order a rapid hand-over of these files, in stead of having to wait another 9 months for the FBI to 'process' the file. The ACLU is deeply concerned about the large-scale surveillance of political and religious groups in the name of fighting terrorism.

In December 2004 ACLU filed access requests to FBI-files on behalf of 7 national organisations and on behalf of more than 100 groups and individuals in 16 States. The ACLU received widespread complaints from students and political activists who said they were questioned by FBI agents in the months leading up to the 2004 political conventions. The people represented by ACLU include "advocates for causes including the environment, animal rights, labour, religion, Native American rights, fair trade, grassroots politics, peace, social justice, nuclear disarmament, human rights and civil liberties."

The US Transportation Security Administration is facing a scandal involving data being swapped forth and back with a private company engaged in data brokering.

As Associated Press reported, the TSA, which is an agency of the US Department of Homeland Security, is not only storing commercial data about domestic air passengers. It has also passed this data on to EagleForce Associate, a company based in Virginia and engaged in data mining. This company matched the data to other sets of data from different sources and burnt it on CDs, which were then sent back to the TSA. The authority reportedly used the CDs for testing terrorist watchlists. This practice concerns only domestic US flights.

But, as part of a deal with the Commission, the Department of Homeland Security is also receiving in advance data of EU passengers on transatlantic flights. The US have promised to treat this data according to EU data protection standards. The Commission has taken this promise as a sufficient guarantee that the data will be treated adequately, which is a legal condition for the data transfer to take place.

After the recent discovery that the Italian Autistici/Inventati server had been seized by the Italian police and a backdoor had been probably installed to allow for easier monitoring of all communication going through it, looks like another Italian community server could have endured the same fate.

On Monday 27 June 2005, two members of FLUG (Firenze Linux User Group) visited the data centre of Dada S.p.a., in Milan, where the community server of the group is physically housed, in order to move it to another provider.

When the server was put out of the rack, however, it was discovered that the upper lid of the server case was half-opened. At a closer inspection, it was also discovered that the case lid was scratched, as if it had been put out and reinserted into the rack. Worse, the CD-ROM cable was missing, as were the screws that kept the hard disks in place.

The German Upper House approved on 8 July the introduction of biometric passports. The 'ePass' will contain a contactless chip (RFID) that will hold a digital frontal picture of the bearer's face. In the future, two fingerprints, one from each hand, will be included - probably starting in 2007. The issuing of the biometric passports is expected to begin in November 2005.

The picture and fingerprints in the chip will be compared with those of the holder of the passport. This will make it possible to establish that the passport really belongs to the holder. During border checks the data in passport can also be compared to federal police watchlists. Currently, there is no plan in Germany to create a central database to store the biometric data.

To facilitate privacy of the data and secure it against unnoticed reading or capture of the transmission, public-key cryptography will be employed. Reader devices at the border also integrate keys. These shall only live for a few weeks, so that stolen reader devices cannot be successfully used to steal data over a prolonged period of time.

While the Irish High Court set a precedent on 9 July by ordering two ISPs to hand-over the name and address data of 17 file-sharers, a few days later a Dutch judge forbade the hand-over of contact details of 41 customers. In both cases the music industry used the services of the US-based company MediaSentry.

The Irish High Court allowed for the demand from the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) on behalf of record majors. The ruling is not available online yet, but the Irish Times reports the judge "noted an undertaking by the record companies that the information would be used only for the purpose of seeking redress for alleged infringement of the copyright of sound recordings and granted the order on that basis." The Irish Times also reports that the judge was not impressed by BT's policy to immediately forward any complaints to their customers, with a demand to desist any future activity. Such a policy couldn't 'deprive the plaintiffs of their entitlement to seek damages'. It is expected that IRMA will now write to the 17 individuals accusing the recipient of illegally sharing music using the internet, seeking damages of up to 6.000 euro from each person for breaching copyright law and threatening legal action against anyone who refuses to pay.