98 posts
How Privacy Vanishes Online
If a stranger came up to you on the street, would you give him your name, Social Security number and e-mail address? Probably not. Yet people often dole out all kinds of personal information on the Internet that allows such identifying data to be d...
A Swift look at Twitter
The so-called SWIFT agreement was not only a kind of miracle that made it possible to watch EPLive with a lot of emotion, passion and tension. It was also, for me, the occasion to better understand Twitter, on which I thought as Kurt (post of 9 Feb)...
EP rejects SWIFT Deal
The European Parliament has refused to give its consent to the EU’s interim agreement on banking data transfers to the USA via the SWIFT network, amid concerns for privacy, proportionality and reciprocity. Now the Commission is considering nego...
EU Parliament Votes Against ‘Anti-Democratic’ EU-US SWIFT Agreement
11 February 2010 - The EU Parliament has today rejected (1) the interim EU agreement to supply SWIFT bank transfer [...]...
Parliament blocks SWIFT.
Via Kosmopolit comes the news that the EP has rejected the extension to the SWIFT...
EP says NO to SWIFT
The European Parliament has said "No!" to the SWIFT agreement between the EU and the USA, with 378 votes in favour and 196 votes against (plus 31 abstentions) the report by rapporteur Hennis (fresh photo from right after the vote) which recommended t...
Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Parliament ? Who dat?
[UPDATE ON 11 FEBRUARY 2010: The European Parliament just rejected the Swift agreement by 378 to 196 votes, giving us an answer to the question in our title: not the US, not the Commission and not the Council, at least on this one!] The press, the...
Banking data: Why MEPs must say no to SWIFT agreement
I have written before why the SWIFT agreement is bad for Europe. This post is an update based on the final agreement and the new arguments that have been brought forward. In short: the situation has not changed and MEPs should reject the SWIFT agreem...
After SWIFT – sudden EU-US data protection agreement consultation
Lately the Commission, the Council and the US administration have been as busy lobbying the SWIFT / TFTP agreement on rendering financial data from the European Union to the United States as they previously were anxious to keep the European Parliamen...
Terry judgement shows that there is absolutely no bias in favour of individual privacy
Last week in Brussels the European Parliament held a hearing on the problem of libel tourism. The problem arises because of an apparent gap as to the appropriate court and the applicable law to be applied to cross border libel cases; a gap which app...
EU Commission outlines plans to strengthen privacy law | Pinsent Masons LLP
EU Commission outlines plans to strengthen privacy law | Pinsent Masons LLP"The European Commission is planning to beef up the Data Protection Directive, strengthening the enforcement of the EU law and including introducing new demands that technolog...
"No to SWIFT" says European Parliament rapporteur Hennis-Plasschaert
In her report on the SWIFT agreement regarding the exchange of banking data between the USA and the EU, European Parliament rapporteur Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert has recommended to the EP to reject the SWIFT agreement in the vote tomorrow. After lon...
EU Personal Data Protection and Privacy Laws to Target Social Media : Facebook, Twitter, Myspace et al.
Leigh Phillips at the EUobserver in New EU laws to target Facebook writes that:"[T]he European Commission ... announced plans for comprehensive new laws that have in their sights the massively popular website [Facebook]....Underscoring its new pow...
4th Data Protection Day 28 January 2010 in Europe
On the fourth Data Protection Day the Council of Europe issued a communication highlighting the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data (Strasbourg, 28.I.1981). Europeans' privacy will be big...
Growing opposition against EU-USA SWIFT or TFTP agreement
Active opposition against the so called SWIFT agreement on the rendition of financial data from the European Union to the United States of America seems to be growing among experts, in the European Parliament and beyond.One the one hand, there is the...
Null and void and SWIFT
Earlier this month, Jerzy Buzek, the President of the European Parliament wrote a letter (via Netzpolitik.org) to the Spanish Council Presidency regarding the SWIFT agreement between the USA and the EU (see background). As you may have noticed, this...
EU USA SWIFT or TFTP Agreement officially published
Late November 2009 we wrote about the upcoming decision of the Council of the European Union to approve the so called SWIFT Agreement to hand over European banking data to the United States, and early December we reported on the decision, taken on th...
The ephemeral concept of online privacy
On Monday, Lifehacker reported [via Gawker, via The Rumpus] that you really shouldn’t trust facebook with your private data. This latest claim, while not surprising, is based on an anonymous interview with a facebook employee who has spilt the...
The Bulgarian Interface for Abuse of Human Rights
The Bulgarian Electronic Communications Act is about to be amended. The amendment will provide unlimited, direct access to the personal data of Bulgarian users of Internet and telecommunication services for the Ministry of Interior. This data will be...
Brussels worried about UK advertising firm snooping on websurfers
Source: EuObserver [ edited ] by: LEIGH PHILLIPS EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The European Commission is worried that the UK is not taking online privacy rights seriously and has warned London that it will take the government to court if it does not...
Følg sporene mine
Vi avskyr overvåkning, men vi legger igjen flere digitale spor enn noensinne, de fleste frivillige. (Another Norwegian article, this time from Morgenbladet a week ago. It’s about surveillance vs. digital footsteeps we voluntarily leave behind)...
Europe's SWIFT Bow
Remember when US President Obama bowed to the emperor of Japan? And when he was...
Mainstream media and EU-USA SWIFT agreement
Have civil society and blogging communities put the EU-US SWIFT agreement on the pages of the mainstream media, or is it the other way around? Without possessing the philosopher’s stone on that question, I am able to report that at least some main...
EU & USA: SWIFT agreement ─ Euroblogs and civil society
Is the proposed SWIFT financial data transfer agreement between the European Union and the United States of America an example of how civil society and Euroblogs take up important societal issues, where our governments are less than forthcoming? I ha...
EU & USA: SWIFT agreement ─ Sweden “informs”
Yesterday, in the blog post SWIFTly signed – Long term damage? (Updated), I criticised the Swedish EU Council presidency for acting against its proclaimed principles of openness, transparency and accessibility with regard to the proposed bank data...
SWIFTly signed ─ Long term damage? (Updated)
The “war on terror” has been a sorry saga of expediency overriding truth and the rule of law. Have the governments of the EU member states learnt anything? Perhaps not, if we look at the Council agenda for Monday. Brussels Blogger has sounded th...
EU to hand all banking details of Europeans to the US
I am no expert in this field, but it really looks like member states on Monday might give unlimited access to all banking details of EU citizens to the USA. According to Brussels Blogger this will be done without asking the same from the US, all has...
5 reasons why the SWIFT deal is very bad for Europe
Today I will list the 5 main arguments against the EU bank data transfer deal with the US.The background of the deal has already been described in my blog post yesterday. These are the 5 reasons: There is no reciprocity: The US will receive EU banki...
SWIFT - EU to grant USA nearly unlimited access to all EU banking data
The EU justice and home affairs minister are about to agree on a large-scale banking data sharing plan with the United States. The agreement will have a massive impact on the privacy of banking data of European businesses and citizens. Background of...
Invasion of Privacy
Ars Technica yesterday ran a story about how a woman in Canada, suffering from severe depression, had her sick leave coverage pulled by her insurance company, Manulife, after seeing pictures of her at a party on facebook. This kind of situation is...
The rise of the EU's surveillance state
We've written an article for the Guardian's Comment is Free looking at the themes in our latest report on the EU's surveillance state and the Government's complicit role in its rise.Click the link below to have a read:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commen...
Waste of Time, Waste of Money – ID cards
At the minimum cost of £5.8 billion by current government estimates, which on their track record will no doubt over run massively, one would think that they must have a good reason for this scheme. It is claimed that identity cards will stop terrori...
VIPs have data too
For years there have been concerns about the voracious appetite for personal data on citizens created by governments and the private sector, and facilitated by technology. If one thing might be changing, it’s a series of incidents where polit...
Legalising tapping now? So what were we doing in 1982?
According to today’s Irish Times we are going to pass a law to allow covert tapping and submission of same in courts. Yet, as Geraldine Kennedy, Bruce Arnold and Vincent Browne proved, the Gardai had electronic surveillance equipment in the ea...
Privacy Chernobyl in Bonn
That gaggle of elite geeks who have been arguing against the horrible possibilities an internetworked world offers to fraudsters and state bullies for years have often said that one day, there’ll be a horrible crunch. A disastrous moment of tru...
