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Deutsch: Zwei Jahre Stockholm Programm: Europa auf dem Weg zu einer elektronisc...

It has been two years now since the Stockholm Programme - a 5-year plan for Justice and Home Affairs - was adopted. On 24 November 2011, an experts' and activists' round table, organised in the European Parliament, raised the question whether Europe was on its way to an e-Fortress.

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Deutsch: INDECT – Datenschutzethik eines Geheimprojekts

A new document on ethical issues published by the INDECT European research project on public surveillance has once more attracted the scrutiny of the media. Previous allegations of secrecy were followed by an attempt to strengthen the project's Ethics Board. The new document however notes that addressing ethical concerns requires time that cannot be spent on research.

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Deutsch: Französisches Verfassungsgericht: Nein zu Polizeizugriff auf CCTV im ...

On 25 February 2010, the French Constitutional Council gave its decision on the appeal made by a group of more than 60 senators and 60 deputies against the law reinforcing the fight against gang violence and the protection of people under public service missions.

The appeal was referring to three articles of the law.

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Deutsch: Italien: Das Anopticon Projekt – wie Überwachung in seine Schranken...

Nowadays, CCTVs are the practical implementation of the "Panopticon", theorised in 1791 by Jeremy Bentham as the "ideal prison", one that keeps people in place by using their natural fear of being surveilled.

The Anopticon project is a reaction to the huge rise in CCTVs installations in Italian cities. Information on CCTVs - where they are, what they point at, which area is being surveilled - is collected by members of the project and put online, publicly accessible via the "Big Brother Viewer".

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Deutsch: Das Stockholmprogramm – das neue gefährliche Überwachungssystem de...

Civil rights groups are worried about a new EU proposal that would enhance a "dangerously authoritarian" European surveillance and security system that will include ID card register, Internet surveillance systems, satellite surveillance, automated exit-entry border systems operated by machines reading biometrics and risk profiling systems.

On 15 June 2009, EU justice ministers discussed on the so called Stockholm programme trying to set up the first EU "domestic security strategy for the EU", by the end of this year.

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The report Surveillance: Citizens and the State recently issued by the House of Lords Constitution Committee supports privacy and considers executive and legal limits must be imposed to surveillance and data collection.

The report is a positive step in the promotion of individual freedom and liberty and offers some recommendations in this direction.

One of the recommendations, following a suggestion from the UK Computing Research Committee's, is that the encryption of personal data should be mandatory in some circumstances and that the Government should introduce appropriate regulations in this sense.

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In Austria the international data protection day on 28 January will pass by widely unrecognised. This year, as already in 2008, the Data Protection Commission (DSK; the Austrian Data Protection Authority) and the Data Protection Council (DSR; a political advisory board) will together organise a meeting for a strictly limited amount of interested persons (max. 100 participants) where they will present European and international developments in data protection. In contrary to 2008, where they were confronted with by far more than 100 registrations, the event was promoted very poorly.

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On 11 October 2008 Prague hosted the DIY Carnival which marched through the city centre in the name of the worldwide initiative "Freedom not Fear".

Starting with a concert of several music groups on the river island Stvanice, more than 1000 people wearing masks outnumbered crowds of tourists on the fancy streets of the Old Town and protested against increasing surveillance within the society.