Is your IP address really yours? EU court to decide the question

Europe’s top court is set to answer a question that seems to be as old as the Internet: Are IP addresses personal data?

Germany’s Federal Court of Justice was scheduled to rule on this Tuesday, but instead decided to refer the matter to the European Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

The answer to the question is crucial for ongoing discussions about the EU data protection reform as well as for the many websites that track and store users’ IP addresses, the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV) said.

Moreover, if the CJEU rules that IP addresses are personal data, this could have huge consequences for the ease of use of the Internet in Europe. Under German law, personal data may only be stored with a user’s consent or for the purposes of billing and such. If IP addresses are considered personal data though, one of the possible consequence could be that Internet users would have to give their consent to store their address every time they visit a website, or alternatively, that websites would have to start storing them on a different legal basis, the VZBV said.


read full article at PC World

Commission slams Hungary’s ‘Internet tax’ (elementary dear PM...)

The outgoing European Commission has delivered an unusually tough statement over a planned new tax on Internet data transfers, which has unleashed boisterous protests in Hungary.

Ryan Heath, spokesperson to Commission Vice President for Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes said the Hungary internet tax is a “terrible idea”.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's government, which has been widely accused of adopting anti-democratic policies, first unveiled plans for the new tax late last week in the draft 2015 tax bill submitted to parliament.


read full article at EurActiv

Europe under massive virtual cyber attack

More than 200 organisations from 25 EU member states are under virtual cyber-attack today  (30 October), as part of the continent’s largest and most complex ever cyber security exercise.

Organised by the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), Cyber Europe 2014 is targeting security agencies, ministries, telecoms and energy companies, financial institutions and internet service providers.

All EU member states except Belgium, Lithuania and Malta are testing their procedures and capabilities against realistic large-scale cyber-security scenarios. The reasons those countries have declined to participate are not known, but are “uncontroversial,” according to ENISA sources.

More than 2000 separate cyber-incidents will be carried out, including denial of service attacks to online services, intelligence and media reports on cyber-attack operations, ambushes designed to change websites' appearances, and attacks on critical infrastructure such as energy or telecoms networks.

read full article at EurActiv

Oettinger floats proposal for EU-wide 'Google-tax'

Günther Oettinger, the EU's incoming Digital Commissioner, has announced plans to reform existing copyright laws within one year, indicating the likely addition of an EU "Google-tax", similar to that applicable in Germany. 

An EU-wide "Google-tax" would require internet search engine providers to pay a fee for displaying copyrighted materials on their sites.

   

“If Google takes intellectual property from the EU and makes use of it, the EU can protect this property and demand that Google pay for it,” Oettinger told the Handelsblatt newspaper. 

read full article at EurActiv

James Comey, F.B.I. Director, Hints at Action as Cellphone Data Is Locked

The director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, said on Thursday that the “post-Snowden pendulum” that has driven Apple and Google to offer fully encrypted cellphones had “gone too far.” He hinted that as a result, the administration might seek regulations and laws forcing companies to create a way for the government to unlock the photos, emails and contacts stored on the phones.

But Mr. Comey appeared to have few answers for critics who have argued that any portal created for the F.B.I. and the police could be exploited by the National Security Agency, or even Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies or criminals. And his position seemed to put him at odds with a White House advisory committee that recommended against any effort to weaken commercial encryption.

 Apple and Google have announced new software that would automatically encrypt the contents of cellphones, using codes that even the companies could not crack. Their announcement followed a year of disclosures from Edward J. Snowden, the former government contractor who revealed many government programs that collect electronic data, including information on Americans.

read full article at NY Times

Cloud Service Level Agreement Standardisation Guidelines

"... These guidelines will form the basis of a submission by the C-SIG SLA subgroup to the ISO/IEC JTC1 Working Group on Cloud Computing, which is currently working on an international standard for cloud SLAs, to ensure maximum impact for the European position to be taken into account at the international level..."

read full article at Digital Agenda EU

Public Outrage Mounts Against Hungary’s Plan to Tax Internet Use (no wonder...)

Public outrage was mounting Wednesday in Hungary against the government’s plan to levy a hefty tax on Internet use from the start of next year, with critics saying it would be detrimental to the country’s economic development, limit access to information and hinder the freedom of expression.

By Wednesday afternoon, 15,000 Facebook users have signed up to attend a street demonstration planned for Sunday in Budapest to protest against the new tax.

A trade union of teachers PSZ, which claims to be the biggest in Hungary with 40,000 members, issued a statement, saying “this measure seriously undermines the operation of public education, limits the freedom of information, of education and the right to learn.”

read full article at WSJ

Mass internet surveillance threatens international law, UN report claims

Mass surveillance of the internet by intelligence agencies is “corrosive of online privacy” and threatens to undermine international law, according to a report to the United Nations general assembly.

The critical study by Ben Emmerson QC, the UN’s special rapporteur on counter-terrorism, released on Wednesday is a response to revelations by the whistleblower Edward Snowden about the extent of monitoring carried out by GCHQ in the UK and the National Security Agency (NSA) in the US.

Emmerson’s study poses a direct challenge to the claims of both governments that their bulk surveillance programs, which the barrister finds endanger the privacy of “literally every internet user,” are proportionate to the terrorist threat and robustly constrained by law. To combat the danger, Emmerson endorses the ability of Internet users to mount legal challenges to bulk surveillance.

read full article at The Guardian

Microsoft’s Lynch Talks Privacy and Trust, Then and Now

Being the chief privacy officer for the world’s largest software company is no small task, especially in light of lingering PRISM accusations and the growing importance of data in an increasingly connected world. Eleanor Dallaway meets Microsoft's Brendon Lynch…

I sit down with Microsoft's chief privacy officer, Brendon Lynch, at a time when privacy and data exposure couldn’t be more topical.

With the revelations of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden still rocking the industry, and bang in the middle of the RSA backdoor controversy, I could forgive Lynch for being a little cagey. After all, the media has been pretty unforgiving in accusing Microsoft of collaborating with law enforcement over access to customer data.

by Eleanor Dallaway  

read full article at InfoSecurity

EU Antitrust Unit Fines Deutsche Telekom

The European Commission’s antitrust unit is fining Deutsche Telekom AG and its subsidiary Slovak Telekom A.S. a total of €69.9 million ($88.4 million) for shutting out rivals from the Slovak market for broadband services for more than five years, in breach of EU antitrust rules, the commission said in a statement Wednesday.

The total consists of two fines: one of €38.8 million on Slovak Telekom A.S. and its parent company, Deutsche Telekom AG for refusing to give access to the so-called local loop or “last mile". 

read full article at WSJ

Telecoms: Commission to cut number of regulated markets in Europe

Today the European Commission – in agreement with Member States - decided that two telecom markets should no longer be subject to regulation in Europe, and that two more should be redefined to reflect market and technology developments. The rules take effect immediately.

The two liberated markets are:

a) the retail market for access to fixed telephony; and
b) the wholesale market for fixed call origination.

The Commission will also redefine two broadband markets, in order to limit regulatory burdens to what is strictly necessary for competitive broadband access and investment.

The Commission is increasing its focus on the distinct needs of business users, to make sure that competitive connectivity can unleash growth across the economy.

European Commission Vice President @NeelieKroesEU says: "I am delighted to announce this cut in telecoms red tape. It is the result of increased competition in telecoms markets and it takes us a step closer to a real Connected Continent”.

read full article at EU

The right to be forgotten - Drawing the line

SOMETIMES a local spark can cause a global fire. In 1998 La Vanguardia, a Spanish daily, ran an announcement publicising the auction of a house to pay taxes owed by Mario Costeja González, a lawyer. The event would have been consigned to oblivion had the newspaper not digitised its archives a few years later. Instead, it came first in Google’s results for searches for Mr Costeja’s name, causing him all manner of professional problems.

When the online giant refused to remove links to the material, Mr Costeja turned to Spain’s data-protection authority. The case ended up in the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which ruled in May that Google must remove certain links on request. The ruling has established a digital “right to be forgotten”—and forced Google to tackle one of the thorniest problems of the internet age: setting the boundary between privacy and freedom of speech.

read full article at Economist