EU adopts data retention
| From: | Jonas Maebe <jmaebe-AT-ffii.org> | |
| To: | news-AT-ffii.org | |
| Subject: | [ffii] EU adopts Big Brother directive, ignores industry and civil society | |
| Date: | Wed, 14 Dec 2005 16:18:08 +0100 |
PRESS RELEASE FFII -- [ Europe / ICT / Information Society ] ====================================================================== EU adopts Big Brother directive, ignores industry and civil society ====================================================================== 14 December 2005 (Strasbourg, France) The European Parliament today adopted a directive that will create the largest monitoring database in the world, tracking all communications within the EU. "From today, all EU citizens are to be tracked and monitored like common criminals," says Pieter Hintjens, president of the FFII. The Data Retention Directive was passed by 378 votes to 197, following deals between the Council and the leaders of the two largest parties in Parliament, the EPP-ED (Conservatives) and the PSE (Socialists). The Rapporteur for the directive, Alexander Alvaro (Liberals) had his name removed from the report in protest. Jonas Maebe of the FFII says: "Among other harsh measures, the directive mandates recording of the source and destination of all emails you send and every call you make, and your location and movement during mobile phone calls. Additionally, the directive says nothing about who has to pay for all this logging, which will significantly distort the internal telecommunications market." "Moreover, the directive disregards how Internet protocols work. For example, tracking Internet telephony calls is generally impossible without closely watching the content of all data packets. The reason is that such connections are not necessarily set up via a central server which can perform the necessary logging. On top of that you have techniques like tunneling (VPN's) which make it simply impossible to look at the content", he adds. The gathered data can be made available without special warrants, and without limit to certain types of crime. There will be no independent evaluation, and no extra privacy and no specific security safeguards. The data will be retained for periods ranging from 6 months up to any duration a member state can convince the Commission of. Hartmut Pilch of the FFII says: "This outcome proves that we have to remain vigilant at all times and work on every relevant directive from the start. Even now, the planned IPRED2 directive, also unanimously condemned by industry and civil society, threatens to turn everyone caught by a patent into a criminal." ====================================================================== Background Information ====================================================================== * Two-page overview of the effects of the most important amendments http://www.ffii.org/~jmaebe/dataret/plen1/summary.pdf * English video stream of today's plenary session http://media.vrijschrift.org/ep_vote_datared_051214_en.wmv * Original language video stream of today's plenary session http://media.vrijschrift.org/ep_vote_datared_051214_or.wmv * Data retention: legislative sausage machine in overdrive http://wiki.ffii.org/DataRet0512En * News, position papers on and analysis of the directive http://wiki.dataretentionisnosolution.com * Permanent link to this press release http://wiki.ffii.org/DataRetPr051214En ====================================================================== Contact Information ====================================================================== Erik Josefsson FFII Brussels Permanent representative ehj @ ffii.org +32-484-082063 ====================================================================== About the FFII -- http://www.ffii.org ====================================================================== The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a non-profit association registered in several European countries, which is dedicated to the spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 850 members, 3,000 companies and 90,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions concerning exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing. _______________________________________________ FFII Press Releases. (un)subscribe via http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/news, or contact media@ffii.org for more information.
Posted Dec 14, 2005 16:44 UTC (Wed)
by pheldens (guest, #19366)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Dec 14, 2005 17:02 UTC (Wed)
by rmayr (subscriber, #16880)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Dec 14, 2005 18:13 UTC (Wed)
by rmstar (guest, #3672)
[Link]
Nice idea, but - the tor servers will probably stop working reliably
under the
aditional
load, and so the whole thing will not be
a nice experience. I don't expect many new servers appearing, as running
tor servers yourself in europe will probably be costly and likey to make
you a target of legislation and law-enforcement. Most people aren't that
idealistic.
Posted Dec 14, 2005 16:59 UTC (Wed)
by copsewood (subscriber, #199)
[Link] (6 responses)
Posted Dec 14, 2005 17:06 UTC (Wed)
by rmayr (subscriber, #16880)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Dec 14, 2005 17:54 UTC (Wed)
by ringlord (guest, #6309)
[Link]
Posted Dec 14, 2005 18:07 UTC (Wed)
by corbet (editor, #1)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Dec 14, 2005 18:20 UTC (Wed)
by rmayr (subscriber, #16880)
[Link]
Posted Dec 14, 2005 18:29 UTC (Wed)
by tgb (guest, #745)
[Link]
If someone wanted to protect themselves to the point of buying prepaid sim cards regularly, they could replace their mobile, e.g. via ebay, regularly too (it's just an example, I can see that given enough transactions then purchases could be linked together too...).
Posted Dec 15, 2005 13:17 UTC (Thu)
by mmarq (guest, #2332)
[Link]
Havent you guessed yet ?
YES you can laugh, but take it seriously!...
http://www.wealth4freedom.com/money/ecr-pem/ch1.htm
...because under heavy DRM internet control posting those links above would probabily simply be not possible.
It dosent solve hollywood or the music industry problems, by the contrary,..., i guess that extrapolating by my purchasing habits if those industrys are dependent on a reasonable minimum sale volume they would be in big trouble,... and their general quality is so low that...
If and when only by DRM or other *centraly_controled* visible medium, then people will not buy them... Sonny faced a rejection recently, and things will trend to get worst about control, intrusion and piracy, to the point that now internet commerce is at the turning point to get extinct...
Music, Movies, Microsoft and other bigger software, Games are still largely based on boxed physical medium selling, so no big loss(if any at all) for the monopoly corja.
Posted Dec 14, 2005 18:24 UTC (Wed)
by iabervon (subscriber, #722)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Dec 14, 2005 18:40 UTC (Wed)
by rknop (guest, #66)
[Link]
-Rob
Posted Dec 14, 2005 22:24 UTC (Wed)
by jimbo (subscriber, #6689)
[Link]
Posted Dec 14, 2005 18:43 UTC (Wed)
by cdmiller (guest, #2813)
[Link]
Posted Dec 14, 2005 18:51 UTC (Wed)
by jrigg (guest, #30848)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Dec 14, 2005 19:04 UTC (Wed)
by rknop (guest, #66)
[Link]
I can see a lot of small ISPs going out of business. ...which, really, may be part of the goal of the legislation, if one is going to be cynical enough. -Rob
Posted Dec 14, 2005 19:14 UTC (Wed)
by ninjaz (guest, #2083)
[Link]
It will be interesting to see if Europeans will be forced to abandon high-speed Internet lines to go back 28.8Kbps modems which can be more affordably logged over that long of a period.
Posted Dec 14, 2005 19:13 UTC (Wed)
by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054)
[Link]
Any chance enough people and companies will say ``Hell,
no!'' actually make a difference in compliance and
enforcement?
Posted Dec 14, 2005 19:15 UTC (Wed)
by QuisUtDeus (guest, #14854)
[Link] (3 responses)
Perhaps people should give their MPs (or whoever is asking that this data be kept) an idea of what an administrative burden and volume of data that they are imposing on people: People that are affected by this, send real or pretend data, in whatever format they like, with whatever obfuscation/embellishment they like to every electronic recipient that had a hand in approving this law.
Of course, if they send it by e-mail, they'll need to send data for this delivery as well in subsequent deliveries.
Feel free to use encryption, with info on how to obtain the keys (which would change from time to time for added security), links to the software needed, etc.
They say they want it. So give it to them.
Posted Dec 14, 2005 19:27 UTC (Wed)
by QuisUtDeus (guest, #14854)
[Link] (2 responses)
That way, the Big Brothers cannot completely hide their actions and intentions.
These could be in the form of blogs, for example.
This would be greatly helpful for awakening people to their common plight at the hands of socialists.
Posted Dec 15, 2005 0:48 UTC (Thu)
by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054)
[Link] (1 responses)
We can't
tell
anyone about FBI requests for information, which
should be called ``warrants'' and only issued by a judge
on evidence of probable cause. It sez here right in the
Fourth
Amendment to our Constitution.
Alternatively, they can get a warrant, but not tell you
about it. This allows the FBI to break into your house,
office, rectum, ..., to see what they can see, without
actually serving the warrant. See aforementioned Fourth Amendment.
Posted Dec 15, 2005 16:13 UTC (Thu)
by QuisUtDeus (guest, #14854)
[Link]
I guess those blogs will have to be in another country, with the complete text of such letters.
Posted Dec 14, 2005 19:54 UTC (Wed)
by chel (guest, #11544)
[Link]
I think this new directive will enable a new market for privacy services. There are a lot of services possible, within and outside Europe that will restore some privacy.
Posted Dec 14, 2005 20:13 UTC (Wed)
by Bjorn (guest, #1520)
[Link]
But what about webmail? Can they and will they register email sent
Posted Dec 14, 2005 20:52 UTC (Wed)
by epeeist (guest, #1743)
[Link] (1 responses)
Did you buy something on your credit card, purchase something from a supermarket, travel by plane? All of this information gets logged and stored to be analysed and used. Did you buy some nappies (diapers), expect the supermarket to be targeting you for children's school clothes a few years down the line. Did you buy travellers cheques from your bank, expect an approach on travel insurance.
And none of this is regulated. At least with this data there is a small chance we could get the parliament to change it.
Posted Dec 15, 2005 16:43 UTC (Thu)
by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
[Link]
So now the corporates are required to store this info for two years and law enforcement can get at it, but no-one else. Great. I wonder if all the member countries will actually implement this, that's always the other half of the battle...
Posted Dec 14, 2005 23:56 UTC (Wed)
by jcm (subscriber, #18262)
[Link] (4 responses)
Jon.
Posted Dec 15, 2005 0:20 UTC (Thu)
by petegn (guest, #847)
[Link] (3 responses)
As a UK citizen i am getting sick of this crap we need a bit of what happened in Romania over here a bit of a clear out so to speak .
Posted Dec 15, 2005 2:13 UTC (Thu)
by Richard_J_Neill (subscriber, #23093)
[Link]
Our state is corrupt: many of the things that should be illegal (Data Retention, Detention without charge/trial,CCTV,ID cards, biometrics) are being actively encouraged by the government.
Now, since we have this legislation, what are we going to do that screws it up? We (the techies) still run the Internet - so how do we build anonymisation and encryption into everything. Preferably by default.
Posted Dec 15, 2005 6:57 UTC (Thu)
by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624)
[Link]
Sadly the UK is already way ahead of Europe on this. If you'd read the
FFII summary PDF you'd have seen:
Posted Dec 16, 2005 14:57 UTC (Fri)
by jcm (subscriber, #18262)
[Link]
Europe needs to overcome the need to regulate everything, this is what alienates people. They have mandates on the legal allowed height for rocking horses and a few million other directives which give the wrong impression. The Euro hasn't been implemented so well and there are other EU issues - but just think about it, isn't it cool that 25 member states with so much diverse history and culture can work together? We've half the member states of the US but many more issues to work out.
The main problem which affects the UK today is her Majesty's Government. They are the ones we should be taking aim at as well as the ones we should have thrown out of office for a continual errosion of our rights. At least the USians have a bill of rights, we just have a few hundred years of piecemeal bills and an apparent willingness to opt out of European Human Rights legislation on a whim - witness the comments of the (thankfully) former Home Secretary.
Jon.
Posted Dec 15, 2005 6:52 UTC (Thu)
by xoddam (subscriber, #2322)
[Link]
Posted Dec 15, 2005 12:36 UTC (Thu)
by grouch (guest, #27289)
[Link]
I'm sure the U.S. spies, such as the F.B.I., will be happily sharing spyware and data with the new EU-created spies.
A sad day for human rights in europe.EU adopts data retention
Let's hope it will increase the usage and developement of anonymising tech.
This directive was the reason why Gibraltar firewall will include freenet, EU adopts data retention
anon-proxy, tor, and mixmaster in the next release. It will not be enabled
by default, but we are trying hard to make it very simple for users to
activate them and use them transparently, without having to change the
clients. Details can be found under
http://jupiter.gibraltar.at/pipermail/gibraltar-list/2005...
I have tested anon-proxy and freenet heavily in your test network over the
last 4 months, and both are stable. freenet still has some problems with
memory usage when running continuously for a long time, but I can
certainly recommend anon-proxy as a tool to preserve a bit of privacy
(there is even a Debian package available in the main archives).
Unfortunately, it is not much that we can do, but this is our small
contribution to preserving privacy in Europe.
we are trying hard to make it very simple for users to activate them
and use them transparently, without having to change the clients
EU adopts data retention
The tech needed to take a users data outside the scope of this already exists: OpenVPN and using virtual machine servers, e.g. http://unixshell.com/ located outside the EU. Unless they make renting a VM outside the EU and operating a VPN illegal this directive will only harm the innocent and will be of no use in tracking smart criminals.EU adopts data retention
Of course it will not - even the tracking of phone calls can be avoided by EU adopts data retention
buying lots of prepaid SIMs and using them only for a short time. It is
indeed questionable which problems this directive intends to solve.
The problem is that most users will not be aware of how much data is
collected about them, let alone how to retain their privacy.
In several countries (most ?) you can't any longer buy prepaid SIM cards without registration.EU adopts data retention
Unfortunately, GSM phones have a unique serial number which is tracked along with the information from the SIM. So it is trivially easy to tie together activity using multiple SIM cards on the same handset.
Mobile tracking
True, but IMEIs can also be changed if you know what you're doing (or just Mobile tracking
use cheap throw-away phones the same way as the SIMs). My point is that
even that part of the directive will not catch professionals.
True, but it's also trivial to change the IMEI number (the unique serial number) as I understand it. In the UK most independent mobile phone shops offer "unlocking" services and from a discussion I had with such a shop owner a few years ago, the cables and software they use allows them to change pretty much anything on the phone.Mobile tracking
"" It isEU adopts data retention
indeed questionable which problems this directive intends to solve. ""
DRM protection and treacherous computing are as stupid as their strategists, and the ultimate goal can only be totalitariam control!
http://www.savethemales.ca/000275.html
Do we really live in freedom ?
http://www.savethemales.ca/001102.html
Does this mean that we can now find out exactly who memebers of EU Parliament talk to? And Microsoft employees? And media company representatives? This seems like the ideal tool to make any government look to the public like a criminal conspiracy. The canonical Big Brother scenario involves only the ministry of truth being able to track people. If just about anyone can track just about anyone, it's a very different, and probably completely untenable, situation.EU adopts data retention
Ho, ho, you think the common man is going to have access to this data? No, only the government and "legitimate business interests" will have access to it, I'm very sure of that. This isn't David Brin's "The Transparent Society," this is 1984.EU adopts data retention
Certainly not! That's an extremely sensitive issue of notional security!!
EU adopts data retention
Amazing. Meanwhile in the U.S.A. tomorrow Dec 15th is Bill of Rights Day. The anniversary of the ratification of the U.S. Bill of Rights in 1791.U.S.A. BIll of Rights Day is Dec 15th
Given that 80% of email traffic is spam, this presumably means that ISPs are going to have to swallow the expense of storing data that is 80% useless.EU adopts data retention
I can see a lot of small ISPs going out of business.
EU adopts data retention
Even for large ISP's, saving all traffic that goes through high-speed lines for a period of six months sounds insanely expensive.EU adopts data retention
I've joked as much as the next guy about black
helicopters, but with this you don't need a helicopter---a
few patrol cars with laptops will do just fine.
And this from the folks who object to what the U.S.
government has been doing with airline passenger data.
Here come the black helicopters...for real?
Did they say anything about bogus data or misleading data?EU adopts data retention
And on the other side, towards "transparent" government in the face of "orwellian" tactics like this, perhaps people could begin a client-side public log of all governmental interaction (with proper discretion for privacy of self and others), so that whenever you are forced to do something to comply with a law, it could be made public, along with commentary on how you were treated, what kind of injustice might have happened, etc.EU adopts data retention
U.S. hides actions
whenever you are forced to do something to
comply with a law, it could be made public
[...]
That way, the Big Brothers cannot completely hide their
actions and intentions.
Dear me---I'm sure you reside somewhere outside the Land of the Free.
[T]he Bill of Rights [is] all
limitation---[it states] what the
federal government cannot do. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court
treats the Bill of Rights as a list of suggestions from a bunch
of hippies.
--- Paladin128 (User #203968), on /.
Great articles. Thanks.U.S. hides actions
We can be quite sure this idea won't work: Almost everywhere you can use badly protected WiFi networks, anonymous prepayd cellphones sell for about E30,= here in THe Netherlands. The secret service that should use the information does not trust networks and is using floppies (and leaves them with unprotected information in the car when they sell it. The secret service agent that recovered the floppies even left his laptop in his car when he collected these floppies!)Look at the bright side: new markets!
This is depressing.EU adopts data retention
from a webmail account outside of the EU?
I have just been sold off (sorry, outsourced) from a large UK bank. While respondents are rightly concerned about the data that is scheduled to be collected here attention ought to be paid to the information that is collected on you by large corporates.Depressing as this is
The irony about all of this is that data collected by corporates can't be just sold to anyone like in the US. In europe citizen's do own have rights over data about themselves. The difference here is that it wasn't required to be collected or stored before this (that's why it's a data retention directive).Depressing as this is
My government is one of the reasons I'm planning to emigrate to Canada. We gave up on the notion of a UK/European Bill of Rights years ago.EU adopts data retention
It is time for the people of the UK to do away with Europe as such and the jerks that got us in there to start with .EU adopts data retention
Unfortunately, it's mainly our infernal govenrment that is causing much of this. To some extent, Europe protected us from the SWPat directive - but this data retention has been at least partly driven by the UK.EU adopts data retention
EU adopts data retention
In the UK traffic data can already be accessed in any investigation, and
authorised by a variety of public agencies beyond policing.
Europe isn't the problem, in fact it's one of the solutions. Working together helps to reduce British xenophobia which still seems to pervade our society. Britain today is "moderately conservative" (read: the Republicans would probably get elected - especially with a bit of use of the T word).EU adopts data retention
... at a later date. Prescription: EU to adopt data laxatives
The EU has decided to collect email addresses from around the world. Send an email to a European and be logged. Receive an email from a European and be logged.EU joins global spy network