Policy Observatory
The European Parliament recently voted in favour of a resolution to refer the EU-Canada agreement on PNR to the Court of Justice to deliver an opinion of its compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights. After this vote, members of the European Parliament and digital rights activists expected the legislative debate on the EU PNR directive to be postponed until the CJEU’s assessment was released. Unfortunately, Commissioner Avramopoulos decided not to wait for the opinion and signaled his desire to quickly reach an agreement on the 2011 directive. To the surprise of many Parliamentarians at the hearing, the Home Affairs Commissioner said the landmark CJEU ruling on data retention was “a different scheme than the PNR.”
Mr. Cameron said that a Tory Government would pass a new law to ensure that the intelligence agencies would be able to track phone calls and internet messages. He said that this power to track “who made which call, to which person, and when” was “absolutely crucial not just in terrorism but finding missing people, murder investigations, almost every single serious crime. "What matters is that we can access this communications data whether people are using fixed phones, mobile phones or more modern ways of communicating via the internet."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has backed increased data surveillance to fight terrorism. “We will not let them divide us,” she told German parliament Thursday, calling for new EU rules soon on data retention. Her statement contrasts with the anger in Germany over US mass surveillance of internet traffic.
In the context of the undergoing Spanish Criminal Code reform, PSOE and PE, two major political parties in Spain, agreed on a law proposal on terrorism which include provisions about the Internet. This happened despite critics saying that the section on terrorism should be left out of the Criminal Code reform.
Today the Spanish Congress debates and votes on amending the Criminal Code on matters of terrorism.
In this article, the Platform in Defense of Freedom of Information (PDLI) emphasizes the setbacks for the fundamental rights that this reform represents.
The Australian's government proposed data retention scheme won’t be used to go after internet pirates, says Tim Morris the federal police assistant commissioner.
Morris told a technology conference on Sunday that the $400m scheme, under which Australians’ metadata would be retained by internet service providers for up to two years, was essential to fight cybercrime and terrorism.
Phone numbers, the time and duration of calls, email addresses and, potentially, URLs would all be stored, but Morris reiterated that the AFP was “not interested in someone sitting down in their lounge room torrenting Game of Thrones”.