<nettime> call for support support statement against EU data retention

[Sjoera Nas <sjoera@bof.nl>]

We kindly invite all NGO's operating in the field of civil rights and  
media freedom to look at a long statement from Privacy International  
and European Digital Rights (15 civil rights organisations from 11  
European countries) against recent EU plans for mandatory data  
retention. So far, 33 renowned civil rights organisations have endorsed  
the statement.

This is the last phase of the public EU policy-making process. If you  
care about your freedom to communicate on-line without systematic  
surveillance, and agree to the statement, please act rapidly and  
sign-on as soon as you can. It's rather urgent, the deadline expires on  
15 September 10.00 AM...

Please find a brief about it below.

Thank you,
Sjoera Nas, editor EDRI-gram / Bits of Freedom (NL)

***

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.

The deadline for comments expires on 15 September 2004.

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.

We invite any other organisations (not individuals) to endorse the  
response, which can be found at
http://www.privacyinternational.org/issues/terrorism/rpt/ 
responsetoretention.html  .

Please go to

http://www.edri.org/cgi-bin/index?id=000100000162

and sign on ASAP but not later than 15.09.2004, 10:00 AM.

Or alternatively, just send an e-mail to edrigram@edri.org with the  
name and URL of your organisation and country if you wish to endorse.


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