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Prague Deputy Mayor announced that following the presure of EDRI-member Iuridicum Remedium and the interpellation of the member of city parliament Petra Kolinska (Green Party) the city authorities decided that RFID chips in newly issued city cards will no longer contain personal data.

This move is a reaction to the press conference Iuridicum Remedium held on 12 June2007. At the press conference cryptologist Tomás Rosa demonstrated that first and last name as well as date of birth of the owners of the newly issued city card can be easily read by any unauthorised person from a distance of a dozen centimeters even when carried in the purse or pocket. The NGO requested city authorities to stop the project of city card

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The RFID Expert Group created by the European Commission in order to assist in drafting the future RFID strategy had several meetings until now. European Digital Rights Initiative (EDRI) submitted two papers to this group on RFID Privacy and Security in order to stress that the reliable protection of privacy and personal data is a key issue for the acceptance of this technology.

The first paper on RFID Privacy issues was EDRI's contribution to the RFID Expert Group Meeting on 10 July 2007 and focused on the data protection and privacy issues of RFID applications, but also suggested a classification scheme for RFID applications based on data protection and user control.

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Following the public consultations on RFID last year, the European Commission announced the creation of an RFID Expert Group to assist in drafting the future RFID strategy. The group's kick-off meeting was held in Brussles last week. EDRi was invited to participate in the group.

The Group has been established for two years and includes representatives from the industry, standardisation bodies and the civil society. The EU data protection authorities participate as observers.

In the past years digital rights organisations have continuously expressed their strong concerns regarding the implications the usage of RFID may have on privacy. The public consultation on RFID confirmed that these concerns

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The European Commission presented its new proposal for the radio frequency identification (RFID) tags strategy for Europe after one year of consultations. The strategy will be drafted in cooperation with a Stakeholder Group to be created and Article 29 Working Party.

An EU study had been initiated after a 6-months period of consultations that had shown concerns related to the use of RFID tags especially regarding public awareness and fears that the system would affect privacy. The study advised on the necessity to assure the public that the tags would not turn into a large-range surveillance system and that people would have control on the information included in the tags.

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UK Government faces now a big problem related to the introduction of the new biometric passports as recently it has been proven these passports can be easily and very cheaply copied by means of a microchip reader that can be legally bought on the Internet.

As a big embarrassment to the Home Office, a project having led to the increase of the travel documents by 60 per cent since March 2006, and that brought about 90 million euro costs for the passport production lines, may be entirely dropped as the new passports are more a risk for their owners rather than an improvement to the old documents.

"Three million people now have passports that expose them to a greater risk of identity fraud than before." said Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home

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After a 6-month consultation period, an EU study initiated after Cebit trade show in March 2006 shows concerns related to the use of RFID (radio frequency ID) tags and reveals the necessity to assure the public that these tags will not lead to a large-scale surveillance system.

The RFID tags are more and more used by businesses to monitor goods and governments are presently considering the introduction of these tags in ID documents. The RFID market will probably grow spectacularly in the next years. The EU prediction is that more than 270 billion radio-frequency ID tags could be sold by 2016 in the world.

During the EU conference ‘Heading for the Future’ that took place at the end

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The event "Travellers privacy and EU" was organised on 3 August 2006 by Prague based NGO Iuridicum Remedium and it brought together Czech and European stakeholders across the spectrum working on technological developments that affect the movement of people across borders.

Speakers came from Data protection agencies within Europe (Italy, Czech Republic, Spain), Czech law enforcement agencies, including the Ministry of the Interior, Czech airlines and the company (Logica CMG) that is producing the RFID-chipped Czech passport - which comes into force on 1 September 2006.

The day was divided into three sessions: the first on the background of travel documents and biometrics, the Schengen Information System, and the

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In a public demonstration at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas on 3 August 2006, Lukas Grunwald's, CTO of German security consultancy DN-Systems Enterprise Internet Solutions, made a demonstration on how electronic passports could be cloned. The industry that produces the passports has denied the allegations.

The German consultant made a demonstration showing the data on the e-passport chip can be easily copied. He has shown that the data can be transferred onto a blank chip that can then be inserted into a blank document looking like the original passport to the electronic passport reader.

Thus, a terrorist could use a passport with his/her real name and