Policy Observatory
Between 15th-19th of September, in the week leading up the first year anniversary of the 13 Necessary and Proportionate Principles, EDRi, the EFF and the coalition behind the Principles will be conducting a Week of Action explaining some of the key guiding principles for surveillance law reform.
On 18 November, the Dutch government finally issued its response to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruling in April 2014 that invalidated the data retention directive 2006/24/EC. Despite all the debate about the legality of data retention practices, the government wants to retain its current data retention legislation.
In January this year, the European Commission opened up a probe on the rule of law in Poland, using for the first time a framework created in 2014.
On 27 July, the EU executive presented its findings and declared that the Law and Justice (PiS) government had passed laws posing a “systemic threat” to rule of law. It gave Poland three months to comply with a list of recommendations aimed at restoring the independence of the judicial system.
On 16 February, the European Parliament voted in favour of the EU Directive on combating terrorism. In EDRI's opinion, the weak, unclear, ambiguous wording in the Directive presents dangers for the rule of law, the right to privacy and freedom of opinion and expression of people in the European Union.
According to a new leak, a number of EU Member States share our serious concerns about the proposal for mass surveillance and censorship of uploads to the internet in Europe, included in the European Commission’s proposal for a new copyright Directive. Those Member States seem unwilling to build a censorship machine forcing EU countries to build a censorship machine forcing EU countries to adopt Google’s current practices. They highlight that such practices should not be implemented without making sure of the consequences for fundamental rights and for the rule of law.