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.