Policy Observatory
On 9 September, European and international civil rights organisations submitted an open letter (pdf) to Google’s Advisory Council on their assessment of the so-called “right to be forgotten”. The groups urge the Council’s members to avoid inadvertently delaying the adoption of the data protection reform package.
EDRi together with several NGOs, consumer groups and industry representatives sent an open letter to the Council of the European Union, calling for Telecoms ministers to support strong net neutrality rules in the EU. The Council is currently reviewing the proposal of the Telecoms Single Market Regulation, voted on by the European Parliament in April.
EFF has joined 26 civil society organizations and 22 computer security experts in a letter that calls on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to reject the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA).
CISA, currently only available in draft form, is yet another iteration of the infamous Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), first introduced in 2011. These pieces of legislation have all been introduced under the auspices of increased computer and network security. But instead of providing increased funding for security research, providing funding for security training for federal government employees, or any of the other ways computer and network security could be made better, they have focused on information sharing, without addressing the privacy and civil liberties implications that entails.
EFF joined more than sixty civil liberties organizations and public interest groups from across the world yesterday in calling upon the world's governments to support the creation of a United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy.
The special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council and serve in their personal capacities. The establishment of a special rapporteur on the right to privacy is a key step that the United Nations can take to ensure that the right to privacy is given meaning and practical application in the light of technological developments. A special rapporteur would play a critical role in developing common understandings and furthering a considered and substantive interpretation of the right to privacy in a variety of settings.
The right to privacy is one of the few civil and political rights without specialist attention from a United Nations mandate holder. Privacy is an independent right, enshrined in a variety of international human rights treaties. There is a pressing need to better articulate the content of this right as part of international human rights law and produce guides on its interpretation, particularly as modern technologies are enabling communications surveillance—and consequent interference with this right—on an unprecedented and damaging scale.
La Quadrature du Net signs an open letter written by Health Action International Europe against the directive's project on trade secrets. Initiated by the business community, put forward by the Member States and the European Commission, it gives the possibility for private companies to sue any person that "unlawfully acquires, uses or discloses" the "trade secrets". Whistleblowers are poorly protected in this text, the directive creates a judiciary insecurity as it will dissuade from leaking from private companies.
This week 31 digital rights groups from some 21 countries on five continents urged the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to pass strong Net Neutrality rules that that would reclassify broadband providers under Title II of the Communications Act. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler gave encouraging signs that he intends to propose rules that would harness the full extent of the FCC’s authority on February 26, yet members of the U.S. Congress and some ISPs are already on the attack.