Sharon P. Duffy reports: In a case that could prove to be one of the most important privacy rights battles of the modern era, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear argument this week on the proper legal standard to apply when prosecutors demand cell phone location data. The data, which are recorded…
Category: Surveillance
FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited
Declan McCullagh reports: The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years, a requirement that law enforcement believes could help it in investigations of child pornography and other serious crimes. FBI Director Robert Mueller supports storing Internet users’ “origin and destination information,” a…
Cyprus: Phone tapping plan bogged down in legalese
Elias Hazou reports: Debates on amending Article 17 of the Constitution, which would allow police to monitor electronic communications, has become bogged down in tricky legal terrain. The House Legal Affairs Committee has more or less agreed on the broad strokes of a draft bill. Under the proposed legislation, phone and Internet surveillance would be…
We’ve got a file on you – Dutch privacy under threat
Sebastiaan Gottlieb reports: Few people realise how much of their private information is stored electronically. New research in the Netherlands shows that details on the average Dutch citizen are held in as many as 250 databases. Some people’s details are kept in thousands of places. On Friday, the Dutch ‘Big Brother’ Awards will be presented…