EDRI-gram Newsletter - Number 2.2, 28 January 2004

[EDRI-gram newsletter]

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                             EDRI-gram

     bi-weekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe

                     Number 2.2, 28 January 2004

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CONTENTS
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1.  European Commission communication on spam
2.  German DP Commissioner criticizes draft IPR Enforcement
3.  Data Dutch KLM passengers handed over to NASA
4.  PNR: Bolkestein's diplomacy and anger Belgian DPA
5.  Italy: five years data retention
6.  EP in favour of collecting societies and levies
7.  Polish government allowed to send SMS-spam
8.  Russian plans to introduce new ID-system
9.  Danish company fined EUR 54.000 for fax-spamming
10. Agenda
11. About

===================================================
1. EUROPEAN COMMISSION COMMUNICATION ON SPAM
===================================================

The European Commission has finally published a Communication on spam, just 
in time for the OECD conference on spam, hosted by the Commission on 2 and 
3 February. The Communication focusses on actions to be taken by the EU 
member states in order to make the ban on spam more effective. Clearly, 
implementing the EU directive on privacy and electronic communications 
(2002/58/EC) is the first and most important step. 7 out of the 15 member 
states have not yet transposed the directive, Belgium, Germany, Greece, 
France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal.

In general, the Communication does not bring much clarity to the complex 
problem of banning spam. It only signals problems caused by the impossible 
compromises dictated by the Directive. For example, Member States may 
decide for themselves how and by whom the enforcement should be done. In 
some countries the Data Protection Authority is given the responsibility, 
in other countries the task is delegated to the National Regulation 
Authority or the Consumer Ombudsman and in many countries responsibility is 
not clear at all. The Commission 'solves' this problem by calling on all 
national parties to collaborate. Even when it is clear who the competent 
authority is, it often lacks investigation and enforcement powers to trace 
and prosecute 'spammers'. "The Commission will look to confirm that 
national transposition measures provide for real sanctions in the event of 
breach of the relevant requirements by market players, including where 
appropriate financial and criminal penalties."

According to the Communication, more than 50 percent of EU e-mail traffic 
was estimated to be spam in December 2003. Besides the obvious negative 
effects for private receivers, the Commission stresses the extra costs for 
businesses in lost productivity, necessary investments in filtering and 
security software and loss of information due to 'false positives', mail 
that is undeservedly treated as spam. But the Directive does not protect 
business e-mail addresses against spam. Member States may extend the 
protection to these addresses but are not required to do so and due to a 
strong direct marketing lobby, in many countries work e-mail addresses are 
not explicitly protected. The Communication does nothing to solve the 
riddle of the difference between the 2 categories of recipients, once more 
limits itself to signal the problem.

 From a civil rights perspective, there should at least be easy and 
affordable public access to a complaint procedure. Every citizen officially 
has a right to complain about violation of privacy rights and claim 
damages. A very obvious solution is the opening up of a national complaint 
mailbox. Experiments from the Belgian and French Data Protection 
Authorities showed massive enthusiasm to complain about spam. The 
Commission clearly likes these, and 'invites Member States and competent 
authorities to set up dedicated e-mailboxes, supported by information 
campaigns.'

Finally, the Commission refers to the essential international dimension, 
since much spam comes from outside the European Union. The Commission hopes 
the OECD workshop will bring some solutions, and promises "to investigate 
how best to follow up the results of the United Nations' World Summit on 
the Information Society in relation to spam."

Simultaneously, the OECD has published a paper with background information 
for participants to the OECD Spam Workshop. Besides a lot of sometimes 
obvious definitions, it contains an interesting overview of current 
anti-spam legislation in all European OECD member countries, including 3 of 
the 4 EU accession countries, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. The 
Czech Republic and Poland have already adopted opt-in and Hungary is 
currently in the process of adopting this approach. The Czech Republic has 
adopted the opt-in approach for commercial communications generally, but 
its legislation does not address spam explicitly.

As for the four other European OECD countries, Norway has adopted an opt-in 
approach. In Switzerland, following a public consultation in October 2002, 
the government is now amending regulation to apply opt-in to spam in all 
forms of messages (e.g. phone, e-mail, fax, SMS) and to oblige the 
telecommunication services providers to combat spam. There is no law on 
spam in Turkey, and information regarding the situation in Iceland is 
currently not available.

European Commission Communication (28.01.2004)
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/ecomm/highlights/current_spo
tlights/spam/index_en.htm

OECD paper on spam (22.01.2004)
http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2003doc.nsf/43bb6130e5e86e5fc12569fa005d004c/e
dfc2255d6a8a51ac1256e240030f5b6/$FILE/JT00157096.PDF

European Commission enforcement action against seven Member States 
(17.12.2003)
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?
p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/03/1750|0|RAPID&lg=EN&display=


===================================================
2. GERMAN DP COMMISSIONER CRITICIZES DRAFT IPR ENFORCEMENT
===================================================

Peter Schaar, appointed 2 months ago as Germany's chief Data Protection 
Commissioner, has severely criticized the draft Directive on the 
Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights, currently under discussion in 
the European Parliament and the Council. Interviewed by the online news 
service Heise, Schaar said the Directive brought along many risks, 
including deep cuts into the confidentiality of communication and citizen's 
privacy rights by giving too many rights of information to the rights 
holders. The Directive is, according to Schaar, also likely to undermine 
current initiatives to regulate the use of RFID tags, and he criticizes the 
possible extension of the field of application from professional copyright 
pirates to 'everyone exchanging private copies', which would be 
'unproportional'.

The European Parliament has meanwhile fixed the agenda for the adaptation 
of the IPR Enforcement Directive in its plenary. According to the current 
planning, the Report will be debated on 9 February in Strasbourg and voted 
on 25 February in Brussels, with the deadline for MEPs to lay down 
amendments set on 5 February. In the debate, MEPs will however discuss only 
a fraction of what they will have to vote on two weeks later. There will 
probably be many last-minute amendments, tabled by the Rapporteur, the 
French Conservative Janelly Fourtou.

Mme Fourtou is engaged in intense discussions with Shadow Rapporteurs from 
the other political groups in the Parliament and with the Council in order 
to reach an agreement on the Directive in the first reading. Parliament and 
Council are trying to approach their positions in a series of so-called 
trilogue meetings, also involving the Commission. These discussions will 
continue after the plenary debate. As the Rapporteur, Mme Fourtou has the 
right to do summarize the results from these meetings in last-minute 
amendments, even after the official deadline.

Heise article on Schaar's criticism (28.01.2004 in German)
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-28.01.04-000/

EP Legislative Observatory on the Fourtou report
http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/oeil/oeil_ViewDNL.ProcedureView?lang=2&procid=
6837

(Contribution by Andreas Dietl, EDRI EU affairs director)


===================================================
3. DATA DUTCH KLM PASSENGERS HANDED OVER TO NASA
===================================================

The US airline company Nothwest Airlines voluntarily handed over the 
personal data of possibly as much as 10 million US and European passengers 
to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Northwest 
Airlines has an alliance with the Dutch airline company KLM. The two 
companies have integrated their reservation systems and operate 
code-sharing flights from the USA to Amsterdam and beyond routes to Europe, 
Africa, the Middle East and India. Airline experts believe part of the data 
handed over to NASA originates from KLM passengers.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington publicized 
documents about the transfer obtained through a Freedom of Information Act 
procedure. NASA requested from Northwest Airlines the passenger data (PNR) 
from July to September 2001 for use in development and testing of 
passenger-profiling schemes. Northwest acknowledges the transfer. The 
company said in a statement that the transfer was 'appropriate' but that 
its current policy 'is to not provide passenger name record data to private 
contractors or federal government agencies for use in aviation security 
research projects'. EPIC has filed a complaint against Northwest Airlines 
with the US Department of Transport.

NASA requested Northwest to provide 'system-wide Northwest Airlines 
passenger data'. System-wide PNR data contains the personal data of all 
passengers on all flights operated by Northwest Airlines, domestic and 
abroad, and the data of all flights from airline companies with which 
Northwest operates code-sharing flights. This applies to KLM flights from 
Amsterdam to the US but also to many KLM flights within Europe and to 
destinations in Africa, the Middle East and India.

KLM can only share data with Northwest Airlines when the US company is able 
to comply with EU privacy standards. The American Civil Liberties Union has 
asked EU commissioner Bolkestein to investigate the handling of EU 
passenger data by Northwest. The Dutch civil liberties organisation Bits of 
Freedom will ask the Dutch Data Protection Authority to investigate the 
transfer, the role of KLM and to order KLM to notify the passengers 
involved.

EPIC documents: Northwest Airlines' Disclosure of Passenger Data to NASA
http://www.epic.org/privacy/airtravel/nasa/

ACLU letter to EU Commissioner Bolkestein (21.01.2004)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/jan/18aclu-pnr-eu.htm


===================================================
4. PNR: BOLKESTEIN'S DIPLOMACY AND BELGIAN DPA
===================================================

MEP Marco Cappato has revealed a letter EU Commissioner Bolkestein sent to 
Tom Ridge, the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security. The letter was sent on 
18 December, only two days after Bolkestein had given his presentation in 
which he tried to mislead the European Parliament on the true nature of the 
agreement on the transfer of Air Passengers personal data to U.S. agencies.

Most interesting is the subtone of the letter, in which Bolkestein behaves 
like an ally of Ridge against the forces wanting to prevent the transfer: 
"On my return from Strasbourg (...), where the initial reaction from 
members of the European Parliament was relatively balanced, I would like to 
thank you once again for your personal commitment (....) to the conclusion 
of our discussions. I share entirely your view that we have set a good 
standard here for EU/U.S. cooperation and I hope we can keep it up."

Bolkestein makes it quite clear that the Commission does not object against 
the use of PNR-data collected in the EU in the CAPPS-II system: "This 
letter reflects my commitment to serious and rapid negotiations between DHS 
(Department of Homeland Security) and the European Commission with a view 
to reaching an understanding authorising the use of PNR data emanating from 
within the EU for the CAPPS II programme."

If the U.S. administration should stick to its plans to link CAPPS-II up 
with the even broader US-VISIT system, the data transfer would constitute 
an even more obvious offence against EU Data Protection law: US-VISIT 
explicitly grants access to all data to 'the Intelligence Community'. To 
conclude, Bolkestein expresses his regret that it is not in the 
Commission's power to stop national Data Protection Commissioners from 
enforcing EU or national DP law: "I nevertheless undertake to keep them 
informed on our discussions in the interest of avoiding any actions which 
may impact on our negotiations."

Both Bolkestein and Ridge must be disappointed by the negative advice from 
the Belgian Data Protection Authority against the transfer. In response to 
a complaint from Marco Cappato, on 19 January the Belgian DPA qualified the 
transfer of data raised at Brussels National Airport to the U.S. as illegal 
under Belgian law, paving the way for legal action to be taken against the 
involved airlines.

Letter from Commissioner Bolkestein to Secretary Ridge (18.12.2003)
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/privacy/docs/adequacy/pnr/2003
-12-18-letter-bolkestein_en.pdf

Statement by MEP Marco Cappato on the letter (27.01.2004)
http://coranet.radicalparty.org/pressreleases/press_release.php?
func=detail&par=6509

Belgian Privacy Commission, response to complaint about transfer of 
personal data to the U.S. by certain air carriers (in French):
http://www.radicalparty.org/privacy/etats_un.pdf

EU Data Protection Directive 95/46
(Article 25 defines conditions for the transfer to third countries of 
personal data raised in the EU)
http://www.dataprivacy.ie/6aii-3.htm#25


===================================================
5. ITALY: FIVE YEARS DATA RETENTION
===================================================

On 28 January 2004, the Italian Lower House approved of a governmental 
decree-law on mandatory data retention by telephone and internet companies. 
Government issued the decree on 24 December 2003, without any prior 
parliamentary debate. All data about electronic communications must now be 
stored for a period of 5 years.

According to the privacy-group ALCEI, the new law isn't much more 
restrictive, or mischievous, than rules and practices that were already 
into force or are likely to follow. "The decree is messy, poorly conceived 
and confusing - hastily put together to amend the previous one (from June 
2003) that made data retention compulsory but (for alleged 'privacy' 
reasons) set a limit of 30 months."

In the new decree, the retention period is extended from 30 to 60 months. 
The older data must be separately accessible and usage is limited to 
particularly serious crimes including kidnapping, organised crime and 
terrorism, as well as crimes against IT or online systems.

ALCEI raises some serious objections against general data retention, 
because of the implication of guilt of every user of telecommunications. 
Using a vague criterion like terrorism enable the state to access any data 
at any time, ALCEI fears:

"Things get seriously worse with a dangerous and dramatic threat such as 
terrorism. There is a real need to prevent and pre-empt - i.e. to find and 
stop terrorists before they act. That can be done in a civilised manner. It 
is more effective, as well as ethically correct, to avoid witch-hunts, to 
stay away from prejudice and arbitrary 'categorisation' - and to avoid any 
violation of those human rights, and personal freedoms, that anti-terrorism 
actions claim to be protecting. In this context data retention (combined 
with the arbitrary, and often clumsy, criteria of data analysis and 
clustering) plays a key role, because it encourages the creation of as many 
'behaviour patterns' as suit the whims of whoever is searching - or of 
whoever else, for any reason, has access to the data."

On 14 January the Lower House accepted a motion about privacy, specifically 
calling on government to take initiatives aimed at careful treatment of 
traffic data from mobile phones. According to privacy-experts, the motion 
is purely cosmetic. Underneath there must have been some serious lobbying 
going on. Previous to the decree-law, ALCEI and 2 ISP-associations saw a 
much stricter decree-law, including the retention of the content of 
e-mails. The law now accepted by the Lower House specifically excludes the 
content of e-mails from the data retention obligations.

Shorthand report about the vote in the Lower House (28.01.2004)
http://www.camera.it/
_dati/leg14/lavori/stenografici/sed414/s290.htm#Titolo36%20119

Statement ALCEI on data retention (24.01.2004)
http://www.alcei.it/english/actions/crimprev.htm

Statewatch article with commentary Italian DPA (January 2004)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/jan/03italy-dataretention.htm


===================================================
6. EP IN FAVOUR OF COLLECTING SOCIETIES AND LEVIES
===================================================

On 15 January 2004 the European Parliament accepted an own-initiative 
report about the importance and future of collecting societies, the 
organisations that collect the rights on copyright and neighbouring rights. 
The report states that Digital Rights Management is insufficiently 
developed to replace the work of collecting societies. According to the 
report, reasonable levies (for example on blank CD-recordables) are "the 
only means of ensuring equitable remuneration for creators and easy access 
by users to intellectual property works and cannot be replaced by Digital 
Rights Management Systems."

In 2002 the European Commission promised to produce a Communication about 
the collecting societies, to fill in some details left open by the new 
Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC). The communication never materialised, and 
the Austrian Member of Parliament Mercedes Echerer took the initiative 
herself.

In most current member states of the EU collecting societies operate from a 
de facto monopoly. Only in the Netherlands (Buma/Stemra) and Italy 
(SIAE/IMAE) do the societies still have a legal monopoly. There has been 
much criticism about the way these societies collect the royalties for 
composers and authors. For example in France the owners of discotheques 
were obliged to pay an astonishing 8,25% of their gross turnover to SACEM. 
After a long legal battle, the European Court of Justice decided that the 
fees indeed seemed very high, certainly in comparison with other countries, 
but over all the management costs were too in-transparent to compare with 
each other. More importantly, the Court ruled that owners could not be 
obliged to pay a blanket fee for the entire repertoire SACEM represents, 
but should be offered a choice. Most discotheque owners claimed they didn't 
care much about French music and only wanted to play Anglo-American 
repertoire.

The European Parliament takes the lessons from these and similar cases into 
account, when insisting on using competition law to examine possible abuse 
of monopoly, forcing the societies to be transparent about their management 
fees, keeping the administrative costs at a maximum of 10-15% and creating 
arbitration procedures that are affordable for everybody.

Creators of copyrighted works must be pleased with the double underlining 
of their rights of free choice; they are explicitly given the freedom "to 
decide for themselves which rights they wish to confer on collective 
management societies and which rights they wish to manage individually", a 
freedom that must be guaranteed by law. Many artists in Europe are still 
forced to sign away all of their rights, including their electronic rights 
and all their future productions, to the national collecting society. This 
policy for example prevents many artists from offering their own music for 
free on their website.

The report carefully avoids to address the most painful issue of Digital 
Rights Management; the privacy of the individual user whose eyeballs and 
ear shells are being tracked and billed for every single byte of creative 
work he or she enjoys. In fact, whenever the report speaks about users, it 
seems to refer only to market parties that make money with the exploitation 
of copyrighted works.

European Parliament report on collecting societies A5-0478/2003 (15.01.2004)
http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?PUBREF=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-
2003-0478+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&L=EN&LEVEL=2&NAV=S&LSTDOC=Y

European Court of Justice, joined cases 110/88, 241/88 and 242/88 against 
SACEM (13.07.1989)
http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexplus!prod!
CELEXnumdoc&lg=en&numdoc=61988J0110


===================================================
7. POLISH GOVERNMENT ALLOWED TO SEND SMS-SPAM
===================================================

According to a recent decision from the Polish Data Protection Authority 
(Generalny Inspektor Ochrony Danych Osobowych - GIODO) a massive 
SMS-spamrun from the Polish government was perfectly legal. A governmental 
agency committed this run in June 2003 as a last-minute reminder to 
citizens of the upcoming referendum about the European Union.

Of the 30 million Polish inhabitants 58.85% were eligible to vote, and no 
less than 77.45% of them voted in favour of joining the European Union in 
the referendum held on 7 and 8 June.

The Bureau for European Integration managed to send all owners of mobile 
phones in Poland an SMS-message reminding them that they could vote until 
20:00 PM. Only the people that had previously opted-out with their operator 
were excluded.

One of the spammed cell phone owners decided to complain about his telecom 
operator for this violation of his private data. However, according to the 
Polish Privacy Authority this spam was not unlawful, since it was not a 
commercial message. Sending commercial messages towards individuals by 
means of electronic communication is forbidden since 10 March 2003 under 
the Polish law concerning the provision of electronic services (adopted on 
18 July 2002). Spamming is not forbidden for privacy-reasons, but because 
it is considered unfair competition. The Bureau for European Integration 
was allowed to send the SMS-spam because of its legal mission: promote 
public knowledge about European integration in Poland.

GIODO Decision (10.12.2003 - in Polish):
http://www.giodo.gov.pl/docs/decyzje/GI-DEC-DS-241-03.doc

Homepage of the Polish DPA (in English)
http://www.giodo.gov.pl/English/english.htm

(Contribution by Piotr VaGla Waglowski, Polish legal expert)


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8. RUSSIAN PLANS TO INTRODUCE NEW ID-SYSTEM
==================================================================

The Russian government is considering a new system of personal registration 
for all citizens. In 2006 all Russians will be assigned a unique universal 
identifier. On 15 January 2004 the deputy minister of economical 
development Andrei Sharonov told journalists that the original proposal had 
been prepared by his ministry and the government supported this idea. The 
ID will be printed (most likely as a bar code) in all identifying documents 
that people obtain from government, like internal passports and driver 
licenses. Each person will get his/her ID after birth, the rest will get 
their identifiers gradually when contacting various governmental bodies.

The idea is to make all personal information (including sensitive data like 
income) available for easy analysis in one commonly accessible data system. 
Since 1996 at least 18 different government databases have been developed 
for voting, taxation, social security, medical, military service and other 
purposes. These databases are not connected with each other. With the new 
ID system the Russian government hopes to achieve progress in three main 
spheres: social and pension insurance, taxation and investigation of 
crimes. It is not clear yet whether all information is to be accumulated in 
one huge database or connected trough existing bases.

The governmental initiative has raised concerns among experts. The main 
issue is the lack of data protection in Russia. In this country many 
privacy-sensitive data about private persons and organisations are widely 
dispersed: databases on car owners, passport data, data about property, tax 
payments, home phone numbers and addresses, data about people wanted for 
crimes and those who have been convicted earlier. CDs with these databases 
are easily available at the black market and on the internet for $5-10. 
Although the Constitution guarantees privacy, the law enforcement bodies 
refer to lack of legislation and do nothing to protect people's privacy. 
There is neither a law on personal data nor a data commissioner (or 
commission) in Russia.

The governmental plans do not foresee in any obligations concerning access 
of third parties to the collected data. Quite the opposite. In addition to 
the original proposal the government declared its intention to 'examine' 
the opportunity for companies to access information about private persons.

"I'm afraid that the information of this central database may become 
available to everyone who is interested in it. Such data as nationality, 
belief, political party membership should only be collected on a voluntary 
and anonymous basis. The procedure must be determined by law, including 
conditions of data transfer from one governmental agency to the other. This 
is the situation in Europe and in the US. But here in Russia we don't even 
have a law on protection of personal data," noted Lev Levinson, expert of 
Institute for Human Rights.

The government plans to prepare all technical specifications for the new ID 
system and appoint a responsible agency within 5 months.

The report of the deputy minister of economical development Andrei Sharonov 
(in Russian)
http://www.economy.gov.ru/merit/574.htm

(Contribution by Sergei Smirnov, Human Rights Network)


==================================================================
9. DANISH COMPANY FINED 54.000 EURO FOR FAX-SPAMMING
==================================================================

The Danish Maritime and Commercial court last week convicted the Danish 
mobile phone company Aircom for spamming. The company has to pay a fine of 
EUR 54.000 (400.000 DKK) for sending out unsolicited commercial faxes. In 
Denmark, this is the largest fine issued up till now for spamming.

In court, Aircom admitted to have sent between 7.650 and 15.300 unsolicited 
faxes to smaller companies. The Danish Consumer Ombudsman had already asked 
the company a year before to stop these illegal marketing practices, but 
they didn't. This was seen by the Court as an aggravating circumstance in 
the case.

The company was convicted for violating section 6a of the Danish Marketing 
Practices Act (Markedsfoeringsloven), which prohibits unsolicited 
commercial e-mails or faxes. The case is the second principle spam case in 
Denmark within a year.

As with the last spam case, it was the Consumer Council, the supervisory 
authority of the anti-spam legislation in DK, which sued the company. The 
Consumer Ombudsman aimed for a fine no less than 94.000 EURO (700.000 DKK).

In Denmark, e-mail, fax and SMS-spamming have been forbidden since June 
2000 under section 6a(1) of the Danish Marketing Practices Act 
(Markedsfoeringsloven). The act creates a very broad privacy-protection, 
for both physical and legal persons and authorities. However, implementing 
Art. 13 of the EU Privacy Directive has weakened the privacy-protection in 
DK. According to the Directive, people that have given their address to 
companies can be spammed with advertisements for 'similar services'. This 
kind of implicit prior consent was previously not allowed under the Danish 
act. The amendment to the Danish Marketing Practices Act entered into force 
25 July 2003.

Danish Consumer Ombudsman press release about the Aircom case (21.01.2004)
http://www.forbrugerstyrelsen.dk/uk/misc/p040122e.htm

(Contribution by Rikke Frank Joergensen, EDRI-member Digital Rights Denmark)


==================================================================
10. AGENDA
==================================================================

30-31 January 2004, Stockholm, Sweden - WHOLES
A Multiple View of Individual Privacy in a Networked World
An international workshop to explore interdisciplinary approaches to 
privacy.
http://www.sics.se/privacy/wholes2004/

2-3 February 2004, Brussels, Belgium - OECD workshop on Spa
Applications closed, but website provides interesting background paper
http://www.oecd.org/sti/spam

4 February 2004, Brussels, Belgium - Copyright in the Digital Age
One day workshop on copyright, lectures and panels with very interesting 
speakers, organised by the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue. There is no fee 
to attend, but pre-registration is required. Contact TACD Coordinator Ben 
Wallis.
bwallis at consint.org

4 February 2004, Paris, France - Orwell Party
Presentation of the French Big Brother Awards, in the Centre culturel La 
Clef, 21 rue de la Clef 75005 Paris.
http://bigbrotherawards.eu.org/2003/

9 February 2004 - Deadline Call for Papers
Selected papers are to be presented at the Center for Intellectual Property 
2004 Annual Symposium, titled Colleges, Code and Copyright: the impact of 
digital networks and technological controls on copyright and the 
dissemination of information in higher education on 10 and 11 June 2004 in 
Adelphi, Maryland (USA)
http://www.umuc.edu/odell/cip/symposium/cpapers.html

29 February 2004 - Deadline Call for Papers
The Programme Committee of the conference eChallenges 2004 is looking for 
papers or workshop proposals
The conference and exhibition take place in Vienna, Austria from 27 - 29 
October. This will be the fourteenth in a series of annual conferences 
supported by the European Commission,
This year's conference themes include eBusiness, eGovernment, eWork, 
eEurope 2005 and ICT Take-up by SMEs, and International Collaboration.
http://www.echallenges.org/2004/default.asp?page=call-papers

25 March 2004 - Deadline Call for Papers
The European Black Hat conference 2004 will take place in the Krasnapolsky 
Hotel in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from 17 to 20 May 2004. Papers are 
invited especially about the European perspective on privacy, anonymity and 
DRM.
http://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-europe-04/bh-europe-04-cfp.html

26-27 March 2004, Warsaw, Poland
Pan-European Forum on safer internet-issues, organised by the Media 
division of the Council of Europe Human Rights Directorate. Deadline for 
funding applications is 20 February 2004.
http://www.safer-internet.net/pconference.asp

==================================================================
11. ABOUT
==================================================================

EDRI-gram is a bi-weekly newsletter about digital rights in Europe.
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