Schlagwort: EU Parliament

EU surveillance state

The EU is increasing the surveillance in its Member States. US authorities could soon also wiretap legally in Europe

The new European Parliament is to be constituted in September, after which the EU Commission will be re-elected. The governments of the member states use this phase to put far-reaching surveillance measures on track. This week the Justice and Home Affairs Ministers debated this on their Council meeting in Luxembourg.

Data retention is right at the top of the agenda. EU-wide, Internet and telephone providers are to be forced to store data on customers and their communications for years. If necessary, these could later be queried by police authorities or secret services. Although the European Union adopted a corresponding directive in 2006, it was declared invalid ten years later by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). As a result, many member states issued national regulations that differ in the depth of intervention or storage period. „EU surveillance state“ weiterlesen

Upload filters: Europol is creating facts

The planned EU Regulation on the removal of „terrorist content online“ has no longer made it through the legislative process; in autumn the newly elected parliament will decide on it. The governments hope that the MEPs will then vote in favour of tightening up the legislation.

On 12 September, the EU Commission presented its proposal for a for a Regulation on „preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online“. It was to be voted on in an urgent procedure under the current EU Parliament, but was not able to make it through the necessary trilogue procedure between Council, Parliament and Commission.

According to the Commission and Council, the regulation would force Internet service providers to remove „extremist“ and „terrorist“ files as quickly as possible. To this end, the law enforcement authorities are to issue removal orders which must be complied with within an hour. This applies to videos, images, text files or entire websites. „Upload filters: Europol is creating facts“ weiterlesen

EU merges biometric data pots: Now the query tsunami is coming

Under the keyword „Interoperability“, the large EU databases in the area of justice and home affairs will be interlinked. Fingerprints and facial images are stored with personal data in a searchable „Identity Repository“. Data queries are expected to increase drastically, with Europol alone expecting 100,000 per day.

The European Union is providing all information systems containing biometric data with new functions. They are partially merged and made searchable with a single click. This was agreed yesterday by the negotiators from the EU Parliament and the Council, writes the Romanian Council Presidency. This ends the struggle for a biometric data repository in which hundreds of millions of fingerprints and facial images will be stored, linked to personal data.

The data is to be kept centrally at the Agency for the Operational Management of Large IT Systems (eu-LISA) in Tallinn. The Agency is also responsible for technical management and secure data transmission. Technical implementation will begin in 2020 and the new capabilities should be operational by 2023. „EU merges biometric data pots: Now the query tsunami is coming“ weiterlesen