By Simon Davies At a meeting earlier today in Brussels, EU Justice Ministers agreed to support significant enforcement powers for a future pan-European data protection authority. Under the new understanding, the proposed European Data Protection Board (EDPB) would be empowered to review decisions where a conflict of opinion arises between national data protection regulators. That …
Read More...Category Archive: Data Retention
Australia pushes data retention law, despite using metadata at twice the UK level
By Simon Davies Earlier this week, Australia’s Attorney General, George Brandis, spectacularly proved that a minute can be an eternity in politics. Or – more precisely – he proved that eight minutes and twenty four seconds can be an eternity. During an interview on Sky television, Brandis set out to defend his government’s plan to …
Read More...Confused about data retention? You won’t be after reading this
By Simon Davies The UK government has introduced emergency legislation called the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill. It is a thoroughly confusing piece of law, highly dangerous to privacy and a blatant abuse of democratic process. To help explain what it’s all about here’s a conversation between David Cameron and the ambulance service. We’re …
Read More...Britain takes the Uganda Road to legalise and extend state surveillance
By Simon Davies In a rare moment of political unity, reminiscent of the days that followed the 9/11 attacks on the US, all three major UK parties have signed onto “emergency” legislation that will force Internet and phone companies to store data on the activities of all their customers. Borrowing from the techniques of some …
Read More...The Trans-Atlantic divide on privacy just became a little wider
By Simon Davies Over the past three weeks the so-called “Trans-Atlantic Divide” on privacy between the US and Europe has widened significantly. This shift could indicate new dynamics in the global push on America to institute more meaningful privacy safeguards for non-US persons. In this short period the European Parliament and the European courts have …
Read More...European court rules mass surveillance of communications unlawful
By Simon Davies In one of the most significant civil liberties developments of recent years, the European Court of Justice has ruled that the EU Data Retention Directive – which requires the mass collection of citizen communications data – is incompatible with the Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. The controversial 2006 Directive requires communications providers …
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