EU member states laid aside the advice of their own legal experts in cutting MEPs out of talks on a new bank data deal with the US. The legal services of the EU council (the member states’ secretariat in Brussels) in July put forward a confidential paper saying that the European Parliament should have co-legislative…
Category: Non-U.S.
UK’s national ID card unveiled
Home Secretary Alan Johnson has unveiled the final design of the controversial national identity card. The card will be offered to members of the public in the Greater Manchester area from the end of this year. Ministers plan to launch the £30 biometric ID Card nationwide in 2011 or 2012 – but it will not…
Exposed activist accuses Tiscali of putting life in peril
A woman who passed national security information to UK authorities spent six months in fear for her life, after Tiscali published her phone number and address in public directories, despite repeated requests to keep the information secret. Tiscali now faces broad questions about the safety of its other ex-directory subscribers and over whether it can…
Council denies snooping through families’ bins
Contractors have been sorting through Salisbury householders’ rubbish to check whether they are recycling enough. But Wiltshire Council denies they were prying or invading people’s privacy. It says they were simply carrying out surveys to assess what was being thrown away in general, and not examining what was in any single bin. The former Salisbury…