netpolitics: Recent Episodes

Kee Alex

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In 2012, the European Commission launched the proposal of the eID to harmonise electronic identification systems in Europe. The intruduction of new passports with biometric data draw even more attention on the use of eID. What all this means and possible dangers for privacy explains Jan Schallaböck, expert on identification of the indepentend data protection authority of Schleswig Holstein (Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz Schleswig-Holstein, ULD)

Furthermore we had the chance to speak with Jan about reserach projects in the EU. The FP7, the Seventh Framework Programme of the EU, funded lots of criticised projects like INDECT or ADABTS. The question is: Shall we fund projects like this with taxpayers money or shall we, for instance, fund standardisation projetcs to implement privacy by desgin?

Links:

Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz Schleswig-Holstein (ULD): https://www.datenschutzzentrum.de

European Commission: Electronic identification, signatures and trust services: Questions and Answers

Lawrence Lessig: Code is Law (youtube)

Wikipedia: TAFTA – Transatlantic Free Trade Area

Podcast with Ralf Bendrath: NPEU007 – Lobbyists, privacy, activists and memes

Bruce Schneier: Identifying People from Mobile Phone Location Data

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Last week, KheOps was in town which gave us the possibility to chat about Telecomix and hacktivism in general. We looked back at the events during #OpSyria in 2011. We talked about the BlueCoat Systems Leak and how Telecomix derouted traffic in Syrian networks, the current situation over there and what hacktivists and activists can do next.

Among other projects, KheOps is involved in Telecomix Syria, FAImaison, the Hackerspace Tunesia and has helped setting up the World Neighborhood which is building a free network, helping people who are exposed to the censorship of their state and providing a toolset for activists.

Links:

  • KheOps https://id.ceops.eu/kheops
  • Blog https://words.ceops.eu/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kheops2713
  • Telecomix: http://telecomix.org
  • World NeighborHood http://web.wnh.me
  • Syria Videos: http://syria-videos.ceops.eu
  • Reflets.info:#OpSyria: When the Internet does not let citizens down http://reflets.info/opsyria-when-the-internet-does-not-let-citizens-down

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Why is the data protection reform becoming so hot right now? We talk to Ralf Bendrath, policy advisor to MEP Jan Albrecht in the European Parliament, about the new privacy laws for Europe and the most aggressive lobbying ever witnessed in Brussels.

Last week’s launch of the portal lobbyplag.eu showed that many Parliamentarians “copied & pasted” demands from documents supplied by industry lobbyists, such as Amazon, ebay, Apple, Banking Federations and the American Chamber of Commerce.

We chatted about the data protection proposals, the role of lobbyists – from both sides, NGO and industry. We discussed the role of activists and what people can do for strong data protection rules for the next decades. How do you call a Parliamentarian? What needs to be in an email? … And, of course, we were talking about cool memes as well.

Links:

  • Twitter: @bendrath
  • Ralf Bendrath http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath/ – Blog: http://bendrath.blogspot.be/
  • The Telegraph: EU Privacy regulations subject to ‘unprecedented lobbying’
  • The Independent: Lobbyists demands were copied into law
  • Commodore 64 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64
  • Albrecht report (pdf)
  • Proposal by the EU Commission (pdf)
  • Hashtag on Twitter: #EUDataP
  • Lobbyplag.eu: http://lobbyplag.eu
  • Privacy Campaign: privacycampaign.eu
  • Memes: http://privacymemes.tumblr.com

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Last weekend, we attended the FOSDEM conference in Brussels, which is one of the most important meetings for European hackers. This was the perfect occasion to have a chat with Eleanor Saitta – “a hacker, designer, artist, writer, and barbarian”. According to her website, she is nomadic, living mostly in airports and occasionally in New York, London, Stockholm, and Berlin and can be found at http://dymaxion.org and on Twitter as @dymaxion.

We were talking about systems (social and technical) and how they fail, (liquid) democracy, the protocoletariat, the Briar project, Geeks without Bounds and travelling…

Links:

  • Eleanor Saitta- Dymaxion.org: http://dymaxion.org/me.html – on twitter: https://twitter.com/Dymaxion
  • Ella’s and Smari’s talk at 29c3: Long live the protocoletariat! (mp4)
  • Open Internet Tools Project (OpenITP): http://openitp.org/
  • Icelandic Modern Media Initiative: https://immi.is/
  • Briar project: http://briarproject.net/ and http://briar.sourceforge.net/ – Support and flattr it https://flattr.com/thing/592836/Briar-A-Secure-News-and-Discussion-System
  • Geeks Without Bounds http://gwob.org/
  • NPEU002 Islands of Resilience: http://www.net-politics.eu/2012/11/npeu002-islands-of-resilience/

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Happy Privacy Day! For this episode, we went to the CPDP conference and had the chance to grab some exciting interview partners for you. The CPDP – Computers, Privacy & Data Protection Conference – is one of the most important and interesting conferences on data protection and privacy of the year. This year, the 6th edition of the conference took place, as always, in the heart of Europe. According to the organiser’s website, the:

CPDP is a non profit platform originally founded in 2007 by research groups from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Université de Namur and Tilburg University. From the start CPDP wanted to be more than just an academic platform. The mission is to gather all relevant stakeholders in an atmosphere of independence and mutual respect.

We talked to:

  • Paul de Hert, main organiser and driving force behind the CPDP, law professor at the VUB;
  • Eric King, head of research at Privacy International about the Global Surveillance Monitor and export controls, FinFisher and the German government,
  • Wendy Seltzer, World Wide Web Consortium staff member, founder and developer of the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, research fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet, and speaker on the panel “ablancing fund rights and online copright enforcemet”
  • Janneke Sloetjes, Bits of Freedom, about the data protection reform and massive US lobbying
  • Andreas Krisch, EDRi president and speaker at the CPDP, about the Data Protection Directive in the law enforcement sector.

And since today is also the international data privacy day, we recommend to sign the Brussels Privacy Declaration: brusselsdeclaration.net

Links:

  1. Paul de Hert: http://www.ies.be/llm/staff/pdehert

CPDP: http://www.cpdpconferences.org/

CPDP programme: http://www.cpdpconferences.org/CPDP2013.html#top

  1. Eric King: https://www.privacyinternational.org/people/eric-king

privacyinernational: https://www.privacyinternational.org/

global surveillance monitor: https://www.privacyinternational.org/projects/global-surveillance-monitor

FinFisher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinFisher

European Parliament Resolution on export controls: http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.24/export-controls-digital-weapons

Wassenaar Arragement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassenaar_Arrangement

German government bought FinFisher (german): https://netzpolitik.org/2013/geheimes-dokument-bundeskriminalamt-kauft-international-bekannten-staatstrojaner-finfisherfinspy-von-gamma/

  1. Wendy Seltzer: http://wendy.seltzer.org/

W3C: http://www.w3.org/

Berkman Center for Internet and Society @ Havard University: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/

Chilling Effects: chillingeffects.org

  1. Janneke Sloetjes, Bits of Freedom: https://www.bof.nl/

Press release: civil rights organizations criticize European privacy proposals: https://www.bof.nl/2013/01/09/press-release-civil-rights-organisations-criticise-european-privacyproposals/

Report by MEP Jan Albrecht on the general data protection regulation (.pdf): http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/libe/pr/922/922387/922387en.pdf

  1. Andreas Krisch; President of EDRi: edri.org

Data protection directive for the law enforcement sector: (.pdf) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/com/com_com%282012%290010_/com_com%282012%290010_en.pdf

Portal for the Directive policingprivacy.eu: policingprivacy.eu

Portal for the Regulation protectmydata.eu: http://protectmydata.eu/

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It`s us! For this last episode before the end of the year, we didn’t only want to produce meta info about us but also provide you with a review of the biggest wins and fails of 2012. We are talking about the podcast project, Brussels, us and recent developments related to EU politics in the digital environment.

In the middle of the year, we had the epic ACTA win after a long fight. But many other important issues were on the agenda of EU policy makers this year, such as the data protection reform package, the use of passenger name record (PNR) data, the evaluation of the data retention directive, security research projects like Indect, the Clean IT project, the digital agenda, including copyright reform, rules for net neutrality… in short, this is a review of the wins and fails of 2012 with an outlook for the coming year(s).

If you want to learn more about us and net politics in the EU you shouldn`t miss this episode. We hope you’ll enjoy this one and the project itself and if so, please do not hesitate to flattr us. If you have any comments on how we can improve the recordings or if you want to learn more about specific issues please let us know. We are still noobs and we really look forward to your feedback.

Kee and Al

P.S. Have a great new year!

Links:

  • Booklet: How the EU works (pdf) http://www.edri.org/files/2012EDRiPapers/activist_guide_to_the_EU.pdf
  • EDRi: Goobye ACTA http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.13/good-bye-acta
  • Video of the ACTA hearing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXqD0DWXtLg
  • Results of the ACTA vote http://www.votewatch.eu/en/anti-counterfeiting-trade-agreement-between-the-eu-and-its-member-states-australia-canada-japan-the–2.html
  • European Parliament ACTA vote pic http://www.flickr.com/photos/greensefa/7500459962/
  • European Data Protection reform proposal, Regulation (pdf) http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/document/review2012/com_2012_11_en.pdf
  • EDRi analysis of the Regulation and what to improve http://protectmydata.eu/
  • Boingboing on CleanIT: http://boingboing.net/2012/09/25/eu-working-group-produces-the.html
  • EDRi leaks CleanIT document: http://www.edri.org/cleanIT
  • European Commission FP7 security projects http://cordis.europa.eu/projects/index.cfm?fuseaction=app.search&TXT=&FRM=1&STP=10&SIC=&PGA=FP7-SECURITY&CCY=&PCY=&SRC=&LNG=en&REF=
  • INDECT website: http://www.indect-project.eu/
  • INDECT commercials: http://www.youtube.com/user/INDECTproject
  • Book: Alter EU – Bursting the Brussels Bubble http://www.alter-eu.org/book/bursting-the-brussels-bubble
  • NeoConOpticon Report: The EU security-industrial complex http://neoconopticon.wordpress.com/read-the-report/
  • Detecter Project http://www.detecter.eu/
  • Project Pact http://www.projectpact.eu/
  • Net neutrality: Neelie Kroes on Champagne service http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF3428zcfDY
  • Digitale Gesellschaft: Vodafail remixer (DE) http://vodafail.digitalegesellschaft.de/
  • MEP in’t Veld, rapporteur of the EU-US PNR Agreement, speeches: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHzmbNHQWck and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBRKwezodVg
  • EU Commissioner Malmström on the EU-PNR Directive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcU91d3SRFI
  • Press release by the EU Commission on a copyright reform http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-12-950_en.htm?locale=en
  • Public Consultation by the EU Commission on IPRED, Answering Guide for citizens by MEP Andersdotter http://ameliaandersdotter.eu/2012/12/17/commission-ipred-consultation-answering-guide-citizens-w-copyrights/

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The European Data Protection reform is, without any doubt, one of the most important initiatives launched by the EU. The legislative process will take at least another year, but if it is successfully concluded, it will have a major impact on our digital lives – and hopefully offer a strong defense of privacy and data protection rights in Europe. At the moment, several committees in the European Parliament are working on the Commission proposals.

The importance of the reform is also the reason why it is now subject to the most aggressive lobbying ever seen in Brussels, mainly led by industry and the US. However, some data protection activists attempt to move the balance back a little bit. We spoke with renowned privacy expert Anna Fielder who is working on the European data protection reform for the non-profit organisation Privacy International.

Links:

  • Privacy International: https://www.privacyinternational.org/about-us
  • Twitter account Privacy International: @privacyint
  • Draft EU Commission proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation (pdf): http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/document/review2012/com_2012_11_en.pdf
  • 1995 Directive, to be replaced by the Regulation: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31995L0046:en:HTML
  • European Parliament Dossier: http://parltrack.euwiki.org/dossier/2012/0011%28COD%29
  • Privacy International position paper: https://www.privacyinternational.org/blog/our-analysis-of-the-european-commissions-proposal-for-a-general-data-protection-regulation
  • Guide to the Data Protection reform: http://protectmydata.eu/
  • Privacy International project: Global Surveillance Monitor https://www.privacyinternational.org/projects/global-surveillance-monitor
  • Privacy International project: Big Brother Inc.https://www.privacyinternational.org/projects/big-brother-inc

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In just a week, the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) is taking place in Dubai. The WCIT is organised by a specialised UN agency, the so-called International Telecommunication Union (ITU). During this meeting in Dubai, the world’s governments might decide the future of the internet – if some proposals were to be adopted during the WCIT, it could mean the end of the open, neutral and free internet.

Many civil rights organisations have therefore started campaigns stop these plans – and one of them is Access. For this episode, we invited Raegan MacDonald, Policy Analyst at Access, and had a chat about Internet Governance, the ITU, net neutrality and activism… and, dear listeners, we do apologise in advance for all the acronyms!

Links:

  • Access: https://www.accessnow.org/
  • Internet Governance, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_governance
  • Campaign by Access and Fight for the Future, What is the ITU: https://www.whatistheitu.org/
  • Fight for the Future: http://www.fightforthefuture.org/
  • WCIT Leaks: http://wcitleaks.org/
  • Internet Governance Forum (IGF): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Governance_Forum
  • Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN): http://www.icann.org/en/about/welcome
  • Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF): http://www.ietf.org/about/
  • European Parliament resolution on WCIT/ITU http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=MOTION&reference=P7-RC-2012-0498&language=EN
  • Amelia’s Internet Governance Forum speech in Baku: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MsoGMT49v_o
  • EU Commissioner Kroes about Champagne service: http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/neelie-kroes/netneutrality/
  • Donate to Access: https://www.accessnow.org/page/contribute/donate
  • Twitter accounts: Raegan @ShmaeganM | ITU @ITU | Access @accessnow

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We had the occasion to grab Smári McCarthy for a short show when he presented his study Islands of Resilience during a press conference organised by the Green group in the European Parliament. Smári works as Executive Director of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI) and co-authored with Eleanor Saitta this study for which they used Iceland as a test case in order to identify good policies for ICT innovation and development in any country. And you can even take the study and run the model on your local area!

Icelandic activists are currently trying to build a legal framework that provides the highest level of privacy and the best laws for media freedom and free speech to make the country the world leader. The study therefore presents a comparative model to evaluate key risks and enablers in the fields of energy, connectivity and jurisdiction in relation to ICT deployment.This means that they looked at factors such as renewable energies and connection speeds – but also censorship and state surveillance have an influence on the attractivity of a country for hosting server farms.

We talked with Smári about his study, data retention, net neutrality, submarine cables, nuclear energy, state surveillance, the Patriot Act, copyright enforcement after ACTA, the creation of a cloud hosting index and Bettina Wulff… And he gave us a sneak preview of a study (“a small book”) he is currently working on and in which he examines the liabilities of internet service providers around the world (… and fun things like algorithmic liability).

Links:

  • Study: Islands of resilience
  • Icelandic Modern Media Insitute
  • The Guardian: Iceland aims to become a legal safe haven for journalists
  • Wikileaks Mirror, Financial collapse: Confidential exposure analysis of 205 companies each owing above EUR45M to Icelandic bank Kaupthing, 26 Sep 2008
  • Submarine Cables Map
  • ArsTechnica : Netherlands becomes world’s second “net neutrality” country
  • The Register : Facebook triple stuffs Swedish data center
  • Zdnet: Updated European law will close Patriot Act data access loophole
  • European Digital Rights (EDRi) leaks G8 document
  • ArsTechnica: Pirate Bay plans to build aerial server drones with $35 Linux computer
  • BBC : Google sued over Bettina Wulff search results

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Welcome to the very first episode of our podcast! For this episode, we had the chance to record Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) during the Freedom not Fear event in Brussels where he talked about his work in Brussels and what the Data Protection reform means for Europe. The main objective of the EDPS is to ensure that European institutions respect the right to privacy and data protection when they propose new policies. It is therefore no surprise that the EDPS also plays an important role in the current reform of EU data protection rules.

In January 2012, the European Commission presented a draft for a single law, the so-called General Data Protection Regulation, which is designed to replace the existing EU Data Protection Directive from 1995 when the Internet was still a new phenomenon. The Regulation would introduce a single data protection law for all 27 EU Member States in order to harmonise the market, give users greater control, force internet companies to obtain consent from users regarding the use of their personal data, delete that data at the user’s request and to introduce fines for failing to comply.

We’re still newbies in the podcast business and are kind of learning by doing… so unfortunately, the audio quality is a bit suboptimal, but we’ll promise to do better next time. We also hope that you’ll bear with us despite our strong German accents…

Links:

  • Draft EU Commission proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation (pdf): http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/document/review2012/com_2012_11_en.pdf
  • 1995 Directive, to be replaced by the Regulation: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31995L0046:en:HTML
  • European Parliament Dossier: http://parltrack.euwiki.org/dossier/2012/0011%28COD%29
  • European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) page dedicated to the Data Protection reform: http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/edps/cache/off/Consultation/Reform_package
  • European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) opinion (pdf): http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/Consultation/Opinions/2012/12-03-07_EDPS_Reform_package_EN.pdf
  • European Digital Rights’ guide to the Data Protection reform: http://protectmydata.eu/
  • Privacy International position paper: https://www.privacyinternational.org/blog/our-analysis-of-the-european-commissions-proposal-for-a-data-protection-directive
  • Twitter: Peter Hustinx/EDPS: @EU_EDPS | EU Parliament Rapporteur: MEP @JanAlbrecht | EU Commissioner: @VivianeRedingEU | Hashtag to follow: #EUDataP