Privacy advocates and experts from the academic, consumer, digital rights and labor communities will discuss on November 3rd 2009 in Madrid with public officials and the business sector how to raise privacy awareness in the global community; and how better include civil society in the decision making processes for better global privacy and data protection standards. The conference “Global privacy standards in a global world” is being held by the Public Voice, an international coalition of civil societies. Find out how to register.

On October 11 2008, internet privacy advocates will be meeting in over twenty of Europe’s major cities and capitals in the Americas to launch the Freedom Not Fear campaign, which protests mass-surveillance and mass data retention that many governments world-wide are undertaking. Together, they will promote democracy, free speech and human rights, and raise awareness on this issue through protests, art displays, flash mobs and parties. This event takes place shortly after the data retention meeting in Budapest on September 19 2008, where APC members Green Spider and BlueLink were among the policy experts, academics and activists that met to discuss the new European data retention policy that will take effect in January 2009.

A European Union directive on data retention is set to be implemented in all member states from 2009, requiring all telecom providers to hold on to your email’s destination, the subject line and the sending time. European internet service providers are requested to retain not only email, but any metadata of communication originating from their network. But isn’t that a violation of the fundamental right to privacy, as defined by our 60-year old Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Isn’t it in direct defiance of APC’s Internet Rights Charter? Groups associated with the APC community, academics and radical technology collectives converge onto Budapest in September to seek a way out of Fortress Europe 2.0.

The OECD ministerial meeting on “the Future of the Internet Economy” is being held in Seoul, Korea from June 17th to 18th. The Korean government seems to use this meeting as an opportunity to show off its advances of the Internet technology. However, no one would call a nation a ‘leading country of the Internet’ solely on its strong information technology base and IT industries. We hope this meeting would be a chance for the Korean government to recognize and feel embarrassed for its information and communication policies, including Internet policies, which violate many human-rights and is lagging behind. Read APC member in Korea, Jinbonet’s press release.

A new online privacy and data protection consultancy firm called ‘80/20 Thinking’ is partnering with the internet rights network Association for Progressive Communications (APC) to support initiatives in developing countries that are working towards strengthening democratic processes and civil liberties.

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) members assisted by Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) officials are conducting house-to-house searches in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet pinpointing each and every internet user with a fast connection. They are collecting user details from all the internet service providers (ISPs) in order to profile more than 450,000 internet subscribers in the country.

A controversial Electronic Crime Bill, drafted by The Ministry of IT & Telecom, Government of Pakistan, is currently being tabled in Parliament in advance of a vote. The bill has already been approved by Cabinet and could receive final approval as early as November. Critics say the Bill is draconian and lacks the safeguards to ensure the protection of civil liberties.

The South Korean parliament is discussing a dangerous revision of the "Protection of Communications Secrets Act". So what? It seems quite clear that the revision would legally enforce telecommunications companies and internet service providers (ISPs) to retain ‘communications data’. But do people agree with this? APC-member in South Korea, Jinbonet, thinks not. International civil society organisations think not. They endorsed a letter of protest that was sent to the South Korean parliament

Increasingly, harassment and stalking is happening in and through digital communications technology. As we gain access and use stuff like blogs, mobile phones, social networking platforms like Orkut and Friendster, personal information displayed and shared may be used in targeted harassment.