From The Guardian:
Plans for a £2bn Home Office surveillance project to track details of everyone’s email, mobile phone, text and internet use have been put on hold after a consultation raised concerns over its technical feasibility, costs and privacy safeguards.
The Home Office has confirmed that legislation for the project, known in Whitehall as the “interception [...]
Archive of posts filed under the International Outlook category.
From the UK – Legislation to access public’s texts and emails put on hold
From the UK – Government opens data to public
From the BBC:
An ambitious website that will open up government data to the public will launch in beta, or pilot, form in December.
Reams of anonymous data about schools, crime and health could all be included.
Data.gov.uk has been developed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the web, and Professor Nigel Shadbolt at the University of Southampton.
It [...]
From India – Centre protests ‘copyright violation’ by Google Books
From the Financial Express:
Web portal Google Books’ initiative to create a digital library by scanning printed publications has triggered alarm bells in India, forcing the Centre to take up the matter with the US government. In a meeting held in the last week of October here, senior Indian officials told their US counterparts that the [...]
EU Breaks Deadlock in Debate Over Right to Internet Access
From PC World:
After months of often bitter debate, European Union lawmakers reached agreement on how to preserve citizen’s rights to Internet access in a meeting that ended in the early hours of Thursday morning.
The issue, which pits citizens’ civil liberties against the rights of content owners such as record and movie companies to protect creative [...]
Internet talks to create copyright police
From The Ottawa Citizen:
Canadian officials are taking part in negotiations for a top-secret copyright treaty that could see families barred from the Internet for a year if someone in the household is suspected of illegal downloads.
Under the worldwide rules of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), Internet service providers such as Bell and Rogers in Canada [...]
Ottawa nixes bid to expand transparency
From The Globe and Mail:
The Harper government has quietly nixed recommendations to expand and modernize Canada’s access-to-information and privacy laws.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s rejection of reforms to the 26-year-old laws sparked accusations Thursday that the Tories have reneged on campaign promises to bring openness and transparency to the federal government.
Merkel criticises Google for copyright infringement
From Reuters:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday criticised the efforts of Google Inc to build a massive digital library, saying the Internet should not be exempt from copyright laws.
In her weekly video podcast, before Tuesday’s opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair, Merkel appealed for more international cooperation on copyright protection and said her government opposed [...]
Legal delays have blown a hole in UK’s digital heritage
From the Guardian:
. . . Digital literature, online scientific research and internet journalism that should have been saved in the nation’s main libraries over the past five years may have been lost because ministers have failed to give them the legal power to copy and archive websites, the Guardian has learned.
Senior executives at the British [...]
Pirate Party ready to come aboard
From the Hollywood Reporter:
While the Australian government looks at introducing a new Internet filtering system, a new political force is set to start making waves down under.
The Pirate Party, lobbying on a platform of copyright reform, is seeking to register as an official political party here and plans to contest the next federal election.
Pirates Plunder Germany’s Big-Party Voters
From Der Spiegel:
Germany’s elections have seen one small special-interest party notch up an impressive performance. The Pirate Party proved popular with first-time male voters — to the tune of 13 percent — and won 2 percent of the overall vote. Party members are already dreaming of a bigger, brighter future.