EDRi welcomes the European Commission's proposal for a new data protection Regulation. Europe needs a comprehensive reform in order to ensure the protection of its citizens' personal data and privacy, while enhancing legal certainty and competitiveness in a single digital market. Since the "inter-service" draft was leaked in December, there has been a significant lobbying effort by certain foreign governments and industries.

One issue that came out during the 28th Chaos Communication Congress held in Berlin between 27 and 30 December 2011, was the use of the so called "Silent SMS" by the police in Germany to track down suspects.

The Silent SMS, also called Flash-SMS is a SMS allowing the user to send a message to another mobile phone without the knowledge of the recipient. "The message is rejected by the recipient mobile, and leaves no trace.

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Deutsch: Smart Metering: Forscher sehen Verletzung der Privatsphäre

Two German researchers presented a talk entitled "Smart Hacking for Privacy" at the 28th Chaos Computing Congress that took place between 27 and 30 December 2011, on the privacy implications of "smart" electricity meters. These devices, installed in homes, collect information to determine the power consumption.

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Deutsch: USA macht weiter Druck auf EU-Kommission und gegen die geplante Datens...

The US Department of Commerce has circulated a second informal note with comments on the proposals for a data protection regulation and a directive on data protection in the field of law enforcement.

Right at the end of the inter-service consultation process in the European Commission (the almost final step before a legislative proposal is launched), the United States Department of Commerce launched a significant lobbying campaign against the leaked draft proposal for a Data Protection Regulation. The campaign included high-level phone calls from senior figures in the US Department of Commerce to top level staff in the European Commission covering topics such as US business, multilateral and bilateral treaty organizations, PNR, national security, law enforcement, trade and innovation. A somewhat less critical, but nonetheless alarming, "informal note" was also circulated (pdf).

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Deutsch: Datenschutzkonferenz: Debatte über einen transatlantischen Datenschut...

The 2nd edition of the Annual European Data Protection and Privacy Conference took place on 6 December 2011, mostly featuring speakers pulled from its corporate sponsors, although it also included a few key European institutions' representatives and data protection officials.

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Deutsch: GB: Medizinische Daten im „Open Data“-Programm?

British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that, under his "open data" programme, all UK medical records will in future be made available to researchers in both academia and the pharmaceutical industry, unless patients opt out.

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Deutsch: Ein Überblick über die geleakte EU-Datenschutzverordnung

Last week, Europe was able to get a first glance at the "General Data Protection Regulation" thanks to a leak by Statewatch. It is due to be officially published on 25 January 2012 and will repeal the outdated Data Protection Directive from 1995. It keeps the Directive's key principles but also aims at taking into account the technological developments.