News and Research articles on PrivacyThe UN High Commissioner explains to Member States that privacy is a fundamental human right. But surveillance practices and legislation have yet to change.
The French parliament has just decided to set up a Commission du numérique (Committee on digital affairs). This could change the course of European internet policy.
In a recent high-profile court case on data protection and freedom of expression, the European Court of Justice has forgotten that publicness needs to be protected from privatisation, argues Lorena Jaume-Palasi.
Germany’s largest telecommunications operator for the first time on 5 May 2014 published a ‘transparency report’ on surveillance requests by German authorities. Kirsten Gollatz reveals how this new statitical input fits into the larger picture.
A review of the recent economic literature aimed at empirically assessing internet users’ valuation of their personal data, suggesting possible limitations and pitfalls in the experiments, and drawing policy-oriented remarks focused on data portability.
Bloggers' and online journalists’ experiences of defamation and privacy law suggest that new approaches to legal policy are needed in a digital media environment. This paper by Judith Townend draws on empirical research to analyse chilling effects in the UK.
How can the European Union react to the revelations of mass collection of personal data by domestic or third country spying agencies? Researcher Carlo Piltz discusses the hot topic and proposes a way ahead.
Drawing on the example of the US surveillance operation PRISM and its impact on European citizens’ right to privacy, the author discusses what an authoritative human rights-based response could look like.
The legal and moral obligations of private online operators collecting and processing large amounts of data are unclear. Researcher Primavera de Filippi explains why.
If you do not see a policeman outside of your door, you are looking out of the wrong window. Read this scholarly essay as an analogy of privacy violations.
A new expert group on cloud computing is to ensure trust in the internet cloud. In the meantime, users can already find privacy-enhanced cloud offers.
Currently dominant cloud services raise challenges in terms of security, privacy and user autonomy. Decentralisation, advocated by civil society, may overcome some of the drawbacks.
The revelations of Edward Snowden have created a sense of urgency to finalise the future framework for protecting privacy and personal data in the European Union. But how far has it progressed?
The American aversion to big government is matched by the German aversion to big data. How to best reconcile the two privacy cultures, is the subject of this analysis.
Internet engineers and hackers clash in Berlin during the internet protocol conference IETF. Encryption experts from both camps agree on one thing though: privacy by default.
There are significant dangers in surveilling online communications unless the mechanisms and policies of surveillance are subject to strict and legally enforceable standards of transparency, oversight, and control.
This week the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) meets in Berlin. In this guest commentary Fred Baker, longtime IETF chair, calls upon the technical community, legislators and researchers to make a stronger effort in advancing privacy online.
Privacy gets another push from recent surveillance revelations, but who shall provide it? A workshop on data protection in cloud computing prior to the upcoming meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force tries to get an answer from politicians and techies.
With the growing tension between the cross-border internet and the patchwork of national jurisdictions, it becomes crucial to keep track of key global trends that drive the debate on appropriate frameworks. Based on the 2012 monitoring work of the Internet & Jurisdiction Project, twelve high-level patterns can be identified. Paul Fehlinger of the I&J project reports.
Over the last few years, privacy has become a trending topic when it comes to the mobile internet. Mobile app developers and providers of app stores have increasingly been put under pressure by privacy advocates.