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Breaking: Members of the European Parliament call for the suspension of the Swift Agreement
Yesterday, the European Parliament passed a Resolution calling for the suspension of a counter-terrorism agreement with the U.S., following recent allegations that the U.S. has breached the privacy safeguards of the agreement, and in doing so, the privacy of millions of E.U.’s citizens.…
24 October 2013
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Access releases Net Neutrality paper amid growing international debate
Since last year, Access has been working to raise the profile of net neutrality and stop network discrimination in Europe. As result of this work, today Access has launched its policy paper on “Net neutrality: Ending Network Discrimination in Europe”.…
23 October 2013
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LIBE Series 6: Safe Harbour under scrutiny by the European Parliament
In the 6th hearing held by the committee, the MEPs focused on the all-important Safe Harbour provisions, investigating whether personal data of E.U. citizens transferred to U.S. under the arrangements had received adequate legal protection.
…15 October 2013
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LIBE Series 5: The “policy of empty seats” shakes Members of European Parliament
During the 5th hearing of Civil Liberties (LIBE) committee inquiry on massive electronic surveillance held on October 3rd, members of the European Parliament have condemned the “deplorable conduct” of the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) after their chief Sir Iain Lobban declined the invitation to collaborate to the investigations.
…7 October 2013
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LIBE Series 4: Civil Society and former whistleblowers weigh in
On September 30th, the EP’s Civil Liberties Committee hold the the fourth hearing of its Inquiry on Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU citizens. The mission of this inquiry is to establish facts regard the scope proportionality and legality of NSA spying programs. MEPs are trying to gather information and evidence to decide their course of actions.…
1 October 2013
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LIBE Series 3: MEPs call for suspension of the counter terrorism cooperation with the US ally
The 3rd hearing of the LIBE inquiry into massive electronic surveillance, held on September 24. MEPs called on the Commission to suspend the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP), an agreement that allows for transfer of bank data (from the SWIFT database) to the US authorities for the fight against terrorism and terrorist financing. …
26 September 2013
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LIBE Series 1 and 2: The European Parliament launches its investigation on extensive spying programs
On September 5th, the LIBE Committee held the first of a series of hearings as part of the inquiry on “Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizen”s established on July 10 by the Libe Committee. The purpose of this inquiry is to investigate into the NSA and other surveillance programmes, and examine whether those programmes are compatible with EU law. …
13 September 2013
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Leaked draft legislation reveals EU telecom regulations lack promised network neutrality provisions
More disappointing news from the Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes is spreading around Brussels. Contrary to previous statements made by the Commissioner, there are no clear network neutrality provisions contained in forthcoming Regulation for the Telecom Single Market, according to a leaked draft recently published by European Digital Rights (EDRi).…
1 August 2013
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Privacy under siege: Unprecedented lobby efforts against the Regulation are revealed
As the European Parliament debates new data protection reforms,US technology companies have arrived in Brussels to commence an unprecedented lobbying effort aimed at preventing strong regulation and weakening existing standards. Most troublingly, some of the draft legislative proposals have been copied and pasted directly from lobbying documents, evidence of the immense influence of US giants like Google and Amazon on European policy.…
26 February 2013