70 international experts and e-activists met in Budapest on Friday 19 September to discuss EU-wide policies on data retention and to develop strategies for defending and enhancing privacy. Hosted by the Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS) at the Central European University in Budapest, the workshop "Data retention on the Internet: Challenges for small, alternative and citizen-based internet service providers (ISPs)" brought together scholars, lawyers, policy experts, digital rights advocates and a large number of grassroots/activist ISPs. EDRI was represented through its board member Meryem Marzouki and Digital Rights Ireland, Electronic Frontier Finland, Iuridicum Remedium, Netzwerk Neue Medien and Greennet.

According to European Union (EU) Directive 2006/24/EC, all

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UK government intends to oblige ISPs and telephone companies to keep Internet personal data traffic for at least 12 months and local, health authorities and lots of other public bodies are to be given access to details of everyone's personal Internet information.

On 15 August 2008, the Home Office published a consultation paper which makes clear that the personal data will now be available for crime and public order investigations and may even be used to prevent people self-harming. Furthermore, as the measure is the result of an EU directive, the data will be made available to public investigators across Europe.

The measure will cover VOIP as well and access to personal Internet and text

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Serbia's Republic Agency for Telecommunications (RATEL) published on 21 July 2008 a document of Instructions for Technical Requirements for Subsystems, Devices, Hardware and Installation of Internet Networks. The document explains the technical requirements for authorized monitoring of some telecom services and provides a list of obligations for the telecom operators.

According with the present text, the ISPs will have to let the police access their databases, including users' e-mail content or browsing history. This regulation seems to be the Serbian version of the data retention directive, since the scope is defined as fighting cyber crime and terrorism.

Danica Radovanovic explains on his blog at GlobalVoices what are the present

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Several leading human rights NGOs from Macedonia issued a reaction to the Parliament and the Government of Republic of Macedonia on 24 June 2008, regarding the recent changes in the Law on Criminal Procedure and the Law on Interception of Communications, allowing special investigative measures (such as surveillance).

The Foundation Open Society Institute - Macedonia, the Association for Criminal Justice and Criminology of Macedonia and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights of the Republic of Macedonia expressed deep concern because of the fast-track adoption of changes in the legislation "without no expert discussion whatsoever." These changes can turn Macedonia from a state based

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The High Court in Dublin has allowed the Irish Human Rights Commission to become a party to the data retention challenge being brought by Digital Rights Ireland. The Human Rights Commission, which is a state body, will be an amicus curiae (friend of the court) with the ability to make submissions about the fundamental rights implications of data retention. The Chief Executive of the Commission Éamonn Mac Aodha stated:

"This case raises important issues about the extent to which laws and measures governing the monitoring of one's private life by the State in pursuit of tackling crime possess sufficient human rights safeguards". Mr MacAodha continued "one of the priorities of the IHRC is to address

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On 31 May 2008, privacy activists organized new rallies in more than 30 cities across Germany.

Following the November 2007 protests under the motto "Freedom not Fear"("Freiheit statt Angst"), thousands of citizens participated in this year street actions.

Numerous demonstrations, rallies, information events, as well as workshops and art performances sent clear signals to protect constitutional rights and limit the rampant proliferation of surveillance.

The rallies had the goal of demonstrating to the ruling grand coalition, a decisive NO of citizens to the blanket collection and storage of data, as well as to the surveillance of all details of daily life. The activities were

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On 1 June 2008, the first hearing by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Ireland's action for the annulment of the directive on data retention took place in Luxembourg.

Ireland, later on joined by Slovakia, filed an action with ECJ against the European Council and Parliament in July 2006 for the annulment of Directive 2006/24/EC for data retention claiming an incorrect legal basis. The action has been largely supported by various bodies and private advocates ever since but despite the strong opposition, the European Parliament made a compromise and adopted the directive the 14 December 2007.

Unfortunately, the legal basis of the data retention directive is supported

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The Dutch Parliament has lowered the data retention term in its implementation of the Data Retention directive to 12 months. The law has still to pass the Dutch Senate, which has been more critical of data retention in the last four years. A lot is still unclear about the law and many concerns, like the absence of evidence for the resulting interference with the right to private life and private communications, have not been adequately addressed yet. Still, the legislature will try to finalize the law before the summer break of the Parliament.

Interestingly, the three-party coalition forming the present Government was split into three camps, arguing for 6, 12 and 18 months

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The new Communications Data Bill proposed by the Home Office has met the opposition of the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) which has shown concerns related to the proposals of building one Government-owned database with records of phone calls, email and Internet use in the UK.

In ICO's opinion, the action is not justified. "If the intention is to bring all mobile and internet records together under one system, this would give us serious concerns and may well be a step too far. We are not aware of any justification for the state to hold every UK citizen's phone and internet records. (...) We have real doubts that such a measure can be justified, or is proportionate or desirable. We have warned before that we are

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Czech Parliament is close to approving the data retention implementation as an Act amending the Electronic Communications Act (127/2005 Coll.). Due to the early introduction of the data retention obligation in the text of the 2005 Act, the current amending draft law implementing the data retention directive is more specific.

EDRi-member IuRe intended to take the opportunity to amend the Act in order to respect privacy. IuRe prepared a set of amendments aiming to shorten the retention period to 6 months (currently one year), to include data that are subject to retention into the text of the Act (currently the data are specified only in a Minister regulation, so it can be modified without