Following a quiet word down at the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Google has been given regulatory approval to publish photographs taken by the fleet of camera-carrying black Opels currently surveying Britain.

Source: The Register

Internet users will be protected from abusive bloggers and malicious Facebook postings under proposals to set up an independent internet watchdog … The body, made up of industry representatives, would be responsible for drawing up guidelines that social networking sites, the blogosphere, website owners and search engines would be expected to follow.

Source: Nicole Martin writing for The Telegraph (via Tony’s Blog)

The European Commission has proposed creating a single strategy for the protection of industrial property rights in Europe. The Commission wants to integrate its strategy for industrial property rights and encourage smaller businesses to protect rights.

Source: Out-Law.com

A “Citizens’ Inquiry” into the Forensic Use of DNA and National DNA Database is calling for proper public debate into the issues raised by the database, education of the public about their rights and an independent body to oversee the development of the database.

Source: The Register

DNA profiles of those not convicted of a crime should be removed from the database in England and Wales, a government-funded inquiry has said.

Source: BBC

Britain’s trade unions have accepted the government’s proposals for ID cards, opening the way for the plans to feature in Labour’s next election manifesto.

Source: Politics.co.uk (via Spy Blog).

Yahoo announced last week that it would no longer issue authorization keys for the digital rights management, or DRM, software on its songs. This meant that anyone who bought songs from the service would still be able to hear their songs through its service but would be unable to move them to other devices or computers.

This did not play well with Web users. Now Yahoo Music plans to issue refunds and is trying to go one step further. If a customer would prefer music over a refund, Yahoo is looking for a way to give the customer copies of the purchased songs in the DRM-free MP3 format, according to a Yahoo representative.

Source: Greg Sandoval writing for C|Net

This consultation is intended to set out and gather views on a proposal for a co-regulatory approach that could be adopted in order to facilitate and ensure co-operation between Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and rights holders to address the problem of illicit use of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing technology to exchange unlawful copies of copyright material.

The consultation document is here [pdf]. The closing date for submissions is 30 October 2008.

Source: BERR (via Torrentfreak)

The National Police Improvement Agency has defended allowing companies access to the national DNA database. A spokesperson for the NPIA told GC News that there are “stringent guidelines” surrounding each request for profiles from the National DNA Database, including scrutiny by a newly formed ethics board.

Source: Kable

Fingerprinting of air passengers in the UK is back on the agenda, despite its having been derailed by the Information Commissioner earlier this year. the Home Office now plans to change aviation security rules to compel airport operators to collect fingerprints from next year onwards.

Source: John Lettice writing in The Register

Millions of profiles on the national DNA database have been handed over secretly to private companies without the consent of those involved…

Source: The Telegraph.