After 5 years of fighting against plans for mandatary data retention, EDRI is deeply disappointed that a majority in the European Parliament has adopted a law decreeing very broad and long retention of telephony and internet traffic data, with access granted for all sorts of undefined crimes. Please visit the special Campaign WIKI for all details and relevant documents.

The EDRI and XS4ALL petition against data retention is closed and has been offered to Jean Marie Cavada, the chairman of the Europarliament committee on civil liberties and Alexander Alvaro, the Europarl rapporteur on data retention.

The petition has attracted over 58.000 signatures, of which over 21.000 from the Netherlands (where the campaign was launched), almost 7.000 from Germany and almost 6.000 from Finland.

All previous EDRI-gram articles about data retention http://www.edri.org/issues/privacy/dataretention

European Digital Rights is kindly inviting all interested people to attend a special public pre-event to the annual DPA conference in Montreux, Switzerland on 13 September 2005. EDRI, together with other NGO's defending digital civil rights, is organising two panels, on biometrics and on data retention.

Strategies for International Privacy Protection
=Issues, Actors, and Future cooperation=

Time and place: Tuesday 13 September 2005, 14:30-18:00, in the Montreux Conference Center, Grand-rue 95, CH-1820 Montreux, Switzerland

EDRI press release
Tuesday 12 July, 13.00 PM

European Digital Rights and Privacy International have sent an urgent letter today to the UK Presidency and the European Commissioners for Justice and Media to show restraint in tomorrow's extraordinary JHA Council. EDRI expects the UK Presidency to table a new urgent procedure for the proposal on telecommunication data retention, bypassing the European Commission and the European Parliament.

On 7 June 2005 the European Parliament has adopted the report of LIBE-rapporteur Alexander Alvaro with a large majority. The report finds the proposal for mandatory data retention disproportionate. The report also questions the necessity, effectiveness and high costs for industry and telecommunication users.
The JHA Council immediately explained to the MEPs that their advice will be ignored. The Council refuses to withdraw the draft framework decision and will continue to work on it.

The Open Letter to the European Parliament on data retention from EDRI, Privacy International and Statewatch is now available in 4 languages.

The Open Letter in English

Lettre Ouverte Version Française

Offener Brief auf Deutsch

Carta abierta en Espanol

EDRI press release, Monday 6 June 2005

European Digital Rights (EDRI) has sent an open letter today to the European Parliament calling for a rejection of the European ministers of Justice and Home Affairs plan to keep all telephone and internet traffic data.

Tomorrow, the European Parliament will vote in plenary on a report by Parliament member Alexander Alvaro on the mandatory data retention plan. Alvaro's report concludes that the proposal is disproportionate. The report also questions the necessity, effectiveness and high costs for industry and telecommunication users. EDRI asks the members of Parliament to adopt Alvaro's report.

=>PDF version of this letter in English.

=>Voir la version Francaise sur le site d'IRIS. Également disponible en PDF.

=>Dieser Brief auf Deutsch. Auch in PDF

=>Esta Carta en Espanol.

To the presidents of the political groups in the European Parliament

Monday 6 June 2005

Dear Sir/Madam,

We kindly request your attention on the matter of the plenary vote (scheduled for 7 June 2005) on the report from LIBE rapporteur Alexander Alvaro on mandatory data retention, nr. 2004/0813(CNS). We are appealing to you on behalf of European Digital Rights, a not-for-profit association of 17 digital civil rights organisations from 11 European countries, Privacy International, an international non-governmental organisation with members in over 30 countries and Statewatch, an organisation that monitors civil liberties in Europe with correspondents in 14 European countries.

Communications data retention is a policy that significantly expands powers of surveillance in an unprecedented manner. It simultaneously revokes many of safeguards in European human rights instruments, such as the Data Protection Directives and the European Convention on Human Rights.

Privacy International (PI) and European Digital Rights (EDRI) have published their joint answer to the consultation on mandatory data retention. The Directorate Generals on Information Society and on Justice and Home Affairs from the European Commission asked for public comments on a proposed retention regime across Europe between 12 and 36 months for all traffic data generated by using fixed and mobile telephony and Internet.

90 civil rights organisations across Europe, the United States and other countries around the world have responded rapidly in showing their concern about this trend of increasing surveillance in such a disproportionate way. Also 89 companies (mostly specialised in IT) have endorsed the statement.

The response can be found at http://www.privacyinternational.org/issues/terrorism/rpt/responsetoret...

The EU plans the wide-spread retention of personal data resulting from communications, or so-called traffic data. We argue that any such retention is necessarily a hazardously invasive act. With the progress of technology, this data is well beyond being simple logs of who we've called and when we called them. Traffic data can now be used to create a map of human associations and more importantly, a map of human activity and intention.

As technologies become more invasive, and as laws are increasingly reluctant to protect individual rights, the European Union should be fulfilling its role to uphold the rights of individuals. Data retention is an invasive and illegal practice with illusory benefits.

General background information

• http://www.privacyinternational.org/retention
• quintessenz EU Data Retention Doqubase