This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Neue ACTA-Verhandlungsrunde: Die Haltung der EU

A new round of negotiations on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is taking place from 26 to 29 January 2010 in Guadalajara, Mexico. As announced by some countries participating in the event the main topics of the new negotiations are: civil enforcement, border measures and enforcement procedures in the digital environment.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Proteste gegen Abhöraktionen und das Vorratsdatenspeicherungsgesetz i...

A protest will take place in Bulgaria on 14 January 2010 in front of the Parliament against the data retention law that the Bulgarian Interior Ministry keeps on pushing ahead with obstinacy.

On 10 December 2009, the Parliamentary Committee on internal security and public order approved, behind closed doors, the amendments proposed by the Interior Ministry to the Electronic Communications Act (ECA) and on 22 December 2009 the amendments were passed in first reading in an emergency meeting by the Parliament despite the large public and media opposition.

The proposed amendments contain provi

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Österreich: BIM liefert Gesetzesentwurf zur Implementierung der Vorra...

In April 2009 - after the EU Commission decided to bring an action against Austria because of non-transposition of the Data Retention Directive 2006/24/EC (DRD) - the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights (BIM) was assigned by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology to elaborate a draft act on the amendment to the Telecommunications Act 2003, in order to find a way of transposition that interferes least with fundamental rights of users.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Urteil des rumänischen Verfassungsgerichts gegen Vorratsdatenspeicher...

The decision of the Romanian Constitutional Court (CCR) against the data retention law was finally published in the Official Monitor on 23 November 2009.

The motivation of the court, which was made public only with a few days before its publication in the Official Monitor, shows an interesting argument from a Court with no prior jurisprudence in the field of privacy protection.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Bürgerrechtsgruppen fordern die Widerrufung der Richtlinie zur Vorrat...

Civil liberties groups European Digital Rights (EDRi) and the German Working Group on Data Retention (AK Vorrat) are calling on the European Union to repeal the 2006 directive on the data retention of electronic communications.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Britisches Innenministerium tritt vom Projekt zur Abhörung von Anschl...

<--- Text clarified on 20.11.2009--->

The Home Office's plan (known as the Interception Modernisation Programme) to put under surveillance everyone's email, mobile phone, text and Internet communications has been put on hold, following the outcomes of a consultation launched in April 2009.

At the beginning of the year, the Home Office had already given up its plans to build a central database with all information on who communicates on phone, email and Internet to whom, where, how and when.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Rumänien: Gesetz zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung für verfassungswidrig e...

The Romanian Constitutional Court (CCR) announced on 7 October 2009 that it took the decision to consider unconstitutional the Romanian implementation of the data retention directive.

The Romanian data retention law has been in force since the beginning of 2009, but it received a lot of bad press reviews, as reported by EDRi-gram at the beginning of the year. Several NGOs declared that they would contest the law.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Belgien: Justizminister will zweijährige Vorratsdatenspeicherung

Belgium is starting again to discuss the implementation of the data retention directive, suggesting a 2-year retention period for electronic communication traffic data, according with the Flemish newspaper De Tijd. The initial discussion in 2008 did not passed the criticism received from the Belgian Data Protection Authority and from the public comments submitted by an ad hoc alliance of civil society and industry.

The draft was presented these days in the media by the Minister of Justice, Stefaan De Clerck.