Over the past year, nearly half a million people in Finland have been fingerprinted for the national passport registry. This is due to an EU mandate that calls on passport applicants to provide biometric information to authenticate their identity. Now police want to be given access to the fingerprint registry to help in criminal investigations….
Category: Non-U.S.
All the Traffic Cop’s Spies
Danielle Citron writes: According to The New York Times, New Delhi’s traffic police have waded into Government 2.0 territory, adopting Facebook to garner public participation. Its Facebook page began much like domestic Government 2.0 sites in asking the public for its views and suggestions. But people didn’t just comment on policy. Instead, they provided real-time…
Italy: Limiting of press freedom impacts bloggers too
Vikki Chowney reports: Italy’s move to restrict wiretapped phone conversations being published online means bloggers and even people posting comments on social networks will have to post retractions when asked, or face a fine. Italy is set to extend its ’obbligo di rettifica’ (rectification obligation), a law that requires newspapers to publish corrections, to cover…
Criminalizing tasteless behavior: Facebook troll Jessica Cook pleads guilty to defacing a tribute page to Justine Jones
A case in Australia reminds us of the importance of First Amendment protections that exist here, even for tasteless conduct. Sophie Elsworth reports: A magistrate has warned online trolls the “heavy hand of the law will come down on you” if disturbing material is posted on social networking sites. Jessica Chantelle Cook, 22, pleaded guilty…