I’m pleased to announce that I can now reveal the location for our live collage of the hundreds of surveillance state photos you’ve been taking this week for the Freedom Not Fear, Big Picture event.
On 11 October, we’ll gather underneath the statue of Winston Churchill on Parliament Square in London to build an image showing [...]

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Today, BT will start trials of Webwise, a technology which analyses your web surfing habits in order to serve you targetted ads. If you’re a BT Total Broadband customer, you might be asked to consent to being part of this trial. Here are four good reasons not to.

You gain nothing. BT is looking to profit [...]

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Happy-snappers unite! We need as many people as possible to take photos of stuff that embodies the database state, and the UK’s world-famous surveillance society (wake up! You’ve just walked into it).
On 11 October, No2ID and the Open Rights Group will make a live collage of the images you’ve taken in a prominent location in [...]

Read the rest of "Capturing the database state: community photocall"

Update (24/09/08): The votes are in. The bad news is that amendment 133 was rejected (watch this space for a link to a list of the MEPs who rejected it). But the good news is that amendment 138 was passed, with a last minute oral amendment. The European Parliament voted to adopt it in [...]

Read the rest of "To do this weekend: ask your MEPs to vote for Telecom package amendments 133 and 138"

Phorm, the targeted behavioural advertising technology company, has been back in the headlines this week. The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) have finally responded to the European Commission’s demand for an explanation of how Phorm’s technology conforms with EU data protection and privacy laws. Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding had asked the [...]

Read the rest of "What BERR want from Phorm - and what we think they’re missing"

Back in July, we asked you to write to your MEP about worrying last minute amendments to the EU Telecoms Package. Now, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), an independent supervisory authority devoted to protecting personal data and privacy, has commented in depth on the amendments in a 13-page report.
In reviewing the amendments, the EDPS [...]

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Last month, the Government announced it would be consulting with the public on ways to curb illicit filesharing. ORG will be developing a response to the consultation over the next two months and we’d like your help.
We’ve put the Executive Summary of the consultation document online. Please use our interactive consultation tool to tell us [...]

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Could Europe be drafting a new law to disconnect suspected filesharers from the internet? MEPs have already signalled their condemnation of this approach. But last-minute amendments to telecommunications legislation could bring the so-called “3 strikes” approach in by the backdoor. If you want your MEP to stick to their guns on 3 strikes, write to [...]

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Will consumer pressure for a safer net mean the end of open platforms and rapid innovation? And should the geeks who “get” the net care if the rest of the world prefer TiVos and iPhones?
On Wednesday of this week we co-hosted an event at the British Computer Society to discuss the problems raised by Jonathan [...]

Read the rest of "The Future of the Internet in Focus"

Broadband Internet access is great, isn’t it? Sure, it’s greater in some areas than others, but in general cable and ADSL have made possible the age of streaming content we now inhabit. And yet… it could always be faster. Especially as low-res sites like Youtube give way to hi-res apps like iPlayer, some providers have [...]

Read the rest of "OfCom Chief Exec on next generation broadband… and network neutrality?"