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Members of the European Parliament have demanded to know what lawmakers intend to do about the conflict between the European Union's Data Protection Directive and the U.S. Patriot Act.
The issue has been raised following Microsoft's admission last week that it may have to hand over European customers' data on a new cloud service to U.S. authorities.
Microsoft is set to launch a new cloud service next week. It said it will allocate its customers a region where their information will be physically stored, but said it could not guarantee that it would tell EU customers' details if US authorities sought access to their data.
"When it comes to privacy, the Internet has long been something of a Wild West but that that is starting to change, with regulators in Europe and the United States beginning to pull in the reins.
On both sides of the Atlantic, officials are scrutinizing how companies such as Facebook and Google handle users' personal data, as they draw up plans to protect surfers while ensuring the growth of rapidly expanding social media, search engine and other Web-based businesses."
"One of the main privacy concerns related to
RFID
technology arises from uses of
RFID
technology
which entail individual tracking and obtaining access to
personal data. While an RFID operator may not have such a goal in mind when
deploying an RFID application, it is important to consider the risk that a third
party may use tags for such unintended purposes. The revised framework now
clearly requires RFID operators to evaluate the risks that may arise when tags
may be used outside the operational perimeter of an RFID application and/or are
carried by persons."
"Under the proposal, all passengers flying
for instance from Brussels to Istanbul will have their "Passenger Name Record"
(PNR) data – including home address, mobile phone number, credit card
information and email address – checked by a special unit of the Belgian police.
Any suspected links with terrorism or serious crime – such as drug trafficking
or people smuggling – will be shared with other member states and the suspects
may be prevented from flying or even arrested."
"As the United States looks at ways to better protect Internet users’ privacy, Europe is going through its own update of online privacy rules. The 27-nation European Union is taking a more aggressive approach to privacy by setting higher bars for how data can be collected on Web users.
European laws prohibit Web sites from tracking users without their permission. The E.U. is also weighing legislation that would let users delete all their information from a Web site, such as Facebook, and transfer data from one wireless provider to another without leaving profiles behind.
Viviane Reding, the vice president of the E.U. Justice Commission and head of privacy regulation, visited The Post on Wednesday to talk about her approach to protecting users in the age of Internet over-sharing. On Thursday, she is scheduled to meet with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss ways the E.U. and U.S. can cooperate on safeguarding consumers' personal information, including data on travel and finances. The talks may also touch on the recent disclosure of classified documents by Wikileaks. "
"The European Union on Thursday
proposed new privacy rights for citizens sharing personal data with websites
such as Facebook and
Google
—threatening
to heighten tensions between European regulators on the one hand and U.S. tech
companies and a fast-growing online advertising industry on the other.
Both Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. have come under fire in the EU this year
for collecting personal data without authorization.
The proposed EU rules—called "A comprehensive approach on personal data
protection in the European Union"—suggest the creation of an online "right to be
forgotten." That would impart to users the power to tell websites to permanently
delete already submitted personal data. The rules also mandate that users give
explicit consent before companies can use or process their personal data in any
way. The 20-page document also criticizes the companies' current privacy
policies as opaque."
"European companies will have to use new standard clauses in the contracts that control their overseas transfers of personal data as a result of a formal Decision adopted by the European Commission on Friday.
advert: Pinsent Masons Data Protection and Freedom of Information Advice Lines
The Decision modifies current standard contractual clauses to take account of the expansion of processing activities and new business models for international processing of personal data. It contains specific provision to allow, under certain conditions, the outsourcing of processing activities to sub-processors, while ensuring a constant protection of personal data.
Outsourcing companies outside the EU will now have to get written permission to subcontract the processing of personal data after the European Commission changed arrangements permitting the export of such information.
The EU's data protection regime limits the export of personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA) which comprises the EU, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein."
"The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday that it is suing Intel, alleging that the chip maker has “waged a systematic campaign to shut out rivals’ competing microchips.” In addition, the FTC is looking to shape the future of the graphics processor market by keeping Intel in check.
In the complaint the FTC argues that Intel (statement, PDF, Techmeme):
* Cut off rivals’ access to the marketplace;
* Deprived consumers of choice and innovation;
* Was anticompetitive for a decade as it moved to shore up its monopoly;
* And now is working to choke off rivals in graphics chips.
The FTC alleges that:
Intel’s anticompetitive tactics were designed to put the brakes on superior competitive products that threatened its monopoly in the CPU microchip market. Over the last decade, this strategy has succeeded in maintaining the Intel monopoly at the expense of consumers, who have been denied access to potentially superior, non-Intel CPU chips and lower prices.
Sound familiar? It is. The FTC argument is very similar to the EU’s case against Intel. The FTC alleges that Intel used threats and rewards against PC giants like Dell, HP and IBM to “coerce them not to buy rival computer CPU chips.” In addition, restrictive dealing kept PC makers from marketing non-Intel machines."
"THE CIA is to be given broad access to the bank records of millions of Britons under a European Union plan to fight terrorism.
The Brussels agreement, which will come into force in two months’ time, requires the 27 EU member states to grant requests for banking information made by the United States under its terrorist finance tracking programme.
In a little noticed information note released last week, the EU said it had agreed that Europeans would be compelled to release the information to the CIA “as a matter of urgency”. The records will be kept in a US database for five years before being deleted.
Critics say the system is “lopsided” because there is no reciprocal arrangement under which the UK authorities can easily access the bank accounts of US citizens in America."
"A leading EU data protection official has given US President Barack Obama's administration a mixed review for its record on protecting data privacy.
European data protection supervisor Peter Hustinx was speaking at a data protection conference in Washington this week.
A report on the Europolitics website said Hustinx praised the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for enforcing the EU-US Safe Harbor Agreement, whereby companies can legally transfer data from the EU to US as long as a self-certifying process is followed.
Europolitics reports that Hustinx noted the FTC's first-ever action against companies not complying with the Safe Harbor agreement, in this case against six companies that claimed they were self-certified, but were not.
But asked about the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s approach, Hustinx said there had been "no major initiative yet"."
"Recently, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has gotten tough with US companies that have not lived up to their own privacy promises to European consumers. In particular, it has filed complaints against seven US companies that claimed that they were adhering to the European Union's Safe Harbor Program, but allegedly were not. (The FTC issues or files a complaint when it has "reason to believe" that the law has been or is being violated, and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. The complaints themselves are not a finding or ruling that the named parties have violated the law.)
By taking action, the FTC has shown that the Safe Harbor program, as applied to US companies, is not a set of empty promises. Rather, the FTC is keeping watch over businesses and will sanction those that misrepresent their own policies.
In this column, I will explain how the Safe Harbor program works, and also discuss the recent FTC enforcement actions."
"The EU and the US have made progress on reaching a deal on a binding agreement on data sharing aimed at fighting terrorism and crime, US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday.
"Last week an EU-US high-level contact group identified a core set of common principles that unite our approaches to protect personal data while processing and exchanging information amongst law enforcement authorities," she said in an address to an international conference in Madrid.
"The next step is a binding US-EU agreement on data sharing and privacy," she added.
Data-sharing deals between the European Union and the United States have so far been made on a case-by-case basis.
Officials on both sides of the Atlantic have sought to boost information sharing in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States as a way to thwart fresh attacks as well as organised crime.
"The US and most European countries have found that this cooperation has paid dividends in the form of preventing terrorist incidents, detaining criminals and preventing illegal immigration," said Napolitano.
But reaching a formal bilateral agreement between the two sides over the issue has reportedly been hampered by questions over what impact a deal would have on private companies' obligations during data transfers as well as over the adequate length of time that shared data should be retained."
"The UK government has been accused of failing to protect citizens' privacy by the European Commission.
It said the government should have done more to guarantee online privacy when trials of a controversial ad-serving system were carried out in 2006.
The Commission said it had now started the second phase of legal action over the trials.
If the UK fails to answer the criticism satisfactorily, it faces being taken to the European court.
"People's privacy and the integrity of their personal data in the digital world is not only an important matter, it is a fundamental right, protected by European law," said Viviane Reding, EU telecoms commissioner. "
"On October 6, 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced proposed settlement agreements with six companies over charges that they falsely claimed membership in the U.S. Department of Commerce Safe Harbor program. In six separate complaints, the FTC alleged that ExpatEdge Partners LLC, Onyx Graphics, Inc., Directors Desk LLC, Collectify LLC, and Progressive Gaitways LLC deceived consumers by representing that they maintained current certifications to the Safe Harbor program when such certifications had previously lapsed. The terms of the proposed settlement agreements prohibit the companies from misrepresenting their membership in any privacy, security or other compliance program. The six enforcement actions are significant as they mark a considerable uptick in the FTC’s enforcement related to the Safe Harbor program. The FTC recently brought its first enforcement action relevant to the program, which is detailed in our post titled FTC's First Safe Harbor Enforcement Action.
The European Union Data Protection Directive requires EU Member States to implement legislation that prohibits the transfer of personal data outside the EU unless the EU has made a determination that the laws of the recipient jurisdiction are substantially equivalent to those of the EU, and thus provide “adequate” protection for personal data. Because the EU has determined that laws of the United States do not meet its adequacy standard, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the EU developed the Safe Harbor Framework, which went into effect in November 2000. The Safe Harbor Program allows participating U.S. companies under the jurisdiction of the FTC or the U.S. Department of Transportation to transfer personal data lawfully from the EU. To join the Safe Harbor, a company must self-certify to the U.S. Department of Commerce that it complies with seven principles that have been deemed to meet the EU’s adequacy standard. To maintain its certification to the Safe Harbor program, a company must re-certify on an annual basis that i
Comments that the World Trade Organization on Friday backed a U.S. complaint against European Union aid to plane maker Airbus are wrong and misleading, EU sources with knowledge of the WTO ruling said.
"The ruling is not a black-and-white case. It simply is not a great victory for the United States," one source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
"The claim that the WTO ruled that subsidies given (by the EU) to Airbus for their A380 plane were illegal is wrong and misleading."
Reuters reported earlier from Washington, citing a person familiar with the case, that the WTO had ruled that billions of dollars in European loans to help Airbus develop civilian aircraft were an illegal subsidy under world trade rules.
Another EU source said aid given by Brussels to the European plane maker for its A350 aircraft was "not mentioned in the (WTO) report and so would not have to be repaid."
He was speaking after the WTO issued a pivotal, but highly confidential, ruling on subsidies given by the EU to Airbus that stands to impact the global aircraft sector.
The World Trade Organization ruled on Friday that billions of dollars in European loans to help Airbus develop civilian aircraft are an illegal subsidy under world trade rules, a person familiar with case said.
The source, who spoke on condition that he not be identified, said the decision was a big win for the United States, but should not be a surprise to either side.
"I don't think people are shocked that launch aid is deemed to be an inconsistent subsidy. I think the shock would have been if the U.S. had lost," he said.
The European Union's privacy watchdogs can be pretty harsh when it comes to Web services that collect a lot of data.
With all the privacy concerns (and antitrust questions) surrounding the Google Book Search settlement, I was slightly surprised to see Viviane Reding, the EU commissioner for Information Society and Media, back the Google Books deal.
In case you have been hiding under a rock, or just not reading the coverage on eWEEK, Google Watch and other high-tech news sites, Google Book Search is the search giant's effort to scan the world's books online and let users access them for fees.
The EU is about to enter talks with the US on giving it access to banking data in its fight against terrorism. German politicians from across the political spectrum are up in arms, and members of the European Parliament say they will try to scupper any deal that violates data privacy.
US anti-terror officials want to be able to continue examining Europeans' financial transactions, and it appears likely that the European Union is going to comply.
Microsoft plans to strip Internet Explorer from sales of Windows 7 in Europe. Redmond plans to basically draw an artificial line in the sand and say, “Ooops, no IE in this Windows! But, uh, if OEMs just happen want to install a browser with the operating system, we do have one available.”
“To ensure that Microsoft is in compliance with European law, Microsoft will be releasing a separate version of Windows 7 for distribution in Europe that will not include Windows Internet Explorer,” the software maker said in the memo. “Microsoft will offer IE8 separately and free of charge and will make it easy and convenient for PC manufacturers to preinstall IE 8 on Windows 7 machines in Europe if they so choose. PC manufacturers may choose to install an alternative browser instead of IE 8, and has always been the case, they may install multiple browsers if they wish.”
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