Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, has an opinion piece in The Guardian: Prohibition of the burqa and the niqab would not liberate oppressed women, but might instead lead to their further alienation in European societies. A general ban on such attire would be an ill-advised invasion of individual privacy. Depending…
Category: Non-U.S.
AU police get access to tax data for trials
Natasha Bita reports: Police will be given new powers to use people’s secret tax details against them in criminal trials, under legislation that weakens the privacy protection over Australians’ tax returns. For the first time, prosecutors will be able to use private tax information as evidence in court for “serious offences”, including identity theft, money…
Some Brits fear garbage-spying microchips
Raphael G. Satter of the Associated Press reports: Monitored by millions of cameras and spied on by a secretive domestic intelligence network, Britons could be forgiven for feeling up in arms over the latest threat to their privacy: Intelligent garbage bins that can monitor how much they throw out. Although the technology is already nearly…
Swedish legal council says no to drug tests for kids
Sweden’s Council on Legislation (Lagrådet) has ruled against a government legislative proposal to allow drug tests on children below the age of 15. The Local reported in February that the government had presented a raft of proposals aimed at tackling youth crime. One of the proposals was for drug tests to be permitted for under-15s…