Privates on Parade…A campaign against EU legislation supporting the corporate sale of personal date without consent

Read more Privacy at MelonFarmers.co.uk

See article from openrightsgroup.org See campaign at nakedcitizens.eu

People from across Europe are sending postcards like this to their MEPs asking them to support new proposals protecting our privacy and giving us control over what happens to our data. Join them right now – click here to send your postcard! You can choose the message and how it looks and everything. Big business isn’t standing by though. They are flooding the normal democratic process with lobbying to get the plans watered down and strip us of our right to privacy. It wants to keep on profiting from our most intimate data. Take Everything Everywhere, reported this week to be selling the data of their 27 million mobile customers to the polling company Ipsos MORI. EE customers’ personal details could have been revealed to the police without their consent. EE say that the data has been anonymised but it is often possible to re-identify people from anonymised data. Phone companies like EE have been pushing particularly hard against the new data protection plans. It’s not hard to see why. They wouldn’t be able sell their customers’ data without their consent. As they stand, the new regulations would help make sure we control what happens to our data, not the big corporations making money from data about our personal lives. Here’s what the new laws would mean for you. You’d be able to decide who gets access to your data, what they can do with it and who they can give it to. You could delete your data or move it wherever you like, whenever you like. Your data would be protected whenever you could be identified. This includes so-called pseudonymous data that could still single you out despite being stripped of personal identifiers such as names and addresses. Services that want to use your data would have to get your explicit consent beforehand so there’d be no more vague or easy-to-misunderstand ‘agreements.’ There would be severe penalties when the rules were broken to help deter companies from misusing your data and infringing your privacy. But all this is under threat. If the big corporations and their armies of lobbyists get their way, the new law won’t have any teeth and companies will just keep on invading your privacy. Help stop their full frontal assault on our personal data! Please send a postcard to your MEPs.

Anonymity on the Internet…British MPs note their concern about Google’s plundering of private data

Read more UK Parliament Watch at MelonFarmers.co.uk

See article from parliament.uk

A small group of British MPs have signed up to an Early Day Motion voicing concern that Google are set to plunder user data for advert serving purposes. The primary sponsor is Robert Halfon and the motion reads: That this House is concerned at reports in the Wall Street Journal that Google may now be combining nearly all the information it has on its users, which could make it harder for them to remain anonymous; notes that Google’s new policy is planned to take effect on 1 March 2012, but that this has not been widely advertised or highlighted to Google’s users and customers, who now number more than 800 million people; and therefore concludes that Google should make efforts to consult on these changes and that the firm should be extremely careful in the months ahead not to risk the same kind of mass privacy violations that took place under its StreetView programme, which the Australian Minister for Communications called the largest privacy breach in history across western democracies. The motion has been signed by Campbell, Gregory: Democratic Unionist Party Londonderry East Campbell, Ronnie: Labour Party Blyth Valley Caton, Martin: Labour Party Gower Clark, Katy: Labour Party North Ayrshire and Arran Connarty, Michael: Labour Party Linlithgow and East Falkirk Corbyn, Jeremy; Labour Party Islington North Halfon, Robert; Conservative Party Harlow Hopkins, Kelvin; Labour Party Luton North McCrea, Dr William; Democratic Unionist Party South Antrim Meale, Alan; Labour Party Mansfield Morris, David; Conservative Party Morecambe and Lunesdale Osborne, Sandra; Labour Party Ayr Carrick and Cumnock Rogerson, Dan; Liberal Democrats North Cornwall Vickers, Martin; Conservative Party Cleethorpes Williams, Stephen; Liberal Democrats Bristol West

Chequered Flag…Max Mosley’s case to notify people prior to press exposure fails at the Grand Chamber of the European Court

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See article from indexoncensorship.org

Former motorsport boss turned privacy campaigner Max Mosley has had his appeal to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights rejected. Mosley had hoped to overturn a May ruling establishing that media outlets were not required to notify the subjects of stories in advance of publication. But the court announced that that judgment would be final. Solicitor Mark Stephens, who represented Index on Censorship, the Media Legal Defence Initiative and other interested parties in the case, said: This decision by the Grand Chamber and the previous decision by the court underline the recommendation made by the UK parliament’s Culture Media and Sport Committee. This is a great day for free speech in Britain and throughout Europe. Index on Censorship news editor Padraig Reidy commented: I Index submitted its concerns about Mr Mosley’s prior-notification plans as we recognised the threat such an obligation would pose to investigative journalism. While privacy is of course a concern, forcing newspapers to reveal stories would have a serious chilling effect.

Asking for a Spanking from 17 Judges…Max Mosley to appeal to the European Court Grand Chamber to obtain prior notification of newspaper stories exposing someone’s private life

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Based on article from dailymail.co.uk

Max Mosley has began an appeal against the European Court rejection of his attempt to extend privacy laws. He had demanded that newspapers about to expose details of someone’s private life are forced to warn the individual before they do so. This would give the person time to seek an injunction to stop publication. But last month the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg threw out the demand, saying it could have a chilling effect on journalism. Now he has taken up his last option — applying for a hearing before a 17-judge Grand Chamber of the same court. A statement from Mosley’s lawyers, Collyer Bristow said: Despite the court’s “severe criticisms” of the News of the World, this and other tabloid newspapers could use the same techniques tomorrow to obtain and publish intimate photographs and details of the sex lives of individuals, without notice and in the knowledge that it is wholly unlawful. Privacy has been the subject of considerable public and media debate in the last month and a ruling from the Grand Chamber of the Court is needed upon this important issue to close a clear gap in UK law