German constitutional judge expresses concerns about the “right to be forgotten”

German constitutional judge expresses concerns about the “right to be forgotten” decision | Internet Policy Review: "German judge concludes, that there are gaps in EU data protection legislation, especially when it comes to acknowledge and put into law the differences between public law and private law actors. The proposed EU data protection regulation which is still on the agenda of the EU bodies might be the right place to find better and more targeted provisions for the different spheres, Masing hopes. But so far the proposals did not go far enough in that direction." 'via Blog this'

WILMap: United Kingdom - Center for Internet and Societ-

WILMap: United Kingdom | Center for Internet and Society: "Regulations 2013/3028, Defamation (Operators of Websites)
 
[These regulations are supplementary to section 5 of the Defamation Act 2013 (see below). Among others, they specify the characteristics of a valid notice of infringement, as well as require the website operators wishing to rely on the section 5 defence to respond to such a notice (by eg. removing the content complained of or by contacting its poster) within 48 hours (see Schedule 1 of the Regulations). That said, reg. 5 provides that the courts have the discretion to extend this period.]" 'via Blog this'

UK Emergency Surveillance Law Criticized For Being Overly Broad, Draconian

UK Emergency Surveillance Law Criticized For Being Overly Broad, Vague And Draconian | TechCrunch: "“The obvious practical significance of this is it certainly clarifies beyond any doubt that companies like Microsoft, that operate Skype, or Google and Twitter or Facebook and all these other big companies, that are not UK companies, don’t have servers in the UK for actually storing data, but obviously have office in the UK, are obliged to comply with a RIPA [Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act] notice,” he said. “I don’t know, as a matter of course whether Google and Facebook were already complying or not.

“Now obviously the question is if a company doesn’t have a presence in the UK… what are they going to do about it? And in the same way that if we get a notice.. obliging us to hand over documents to let’s say the Chinese or frankly any foreign country we tell them to get stuffed. Because we’re not subject to their laws. So extraterritoriality is, in theory, a very nice thing to have but it’s of little power if you don’t have the policemen who can go and enforce it.”" 'via Blog this'

Oxbridge and Russell Group graduates dominate latest City trainee intake

Legal Cheek » Oxbridge and Russell Group graduates dominate latest trainee intake of top law firms:

"Out of 1,049 trainees taken on by 24 leading UK law firms in 2013, 219 (21%) were Oxbridge graduates and 613 were Russell Group graduates (58%). Just 156 (15%) of the trainees came from other UK universities, with the remaining 61 (6%) from foreign universities. The survey was targeted at top 30 UK law firms by revenue."

Six of top 30 firms (half of magic circle) refused to take part: Clifford Chance, Slaughter and May, Freshfields, DLA Piper, Holman Fenwick Willan and Simmons & Simmons. 'via Blog this'

A snoopers' charter by the backdoor: One day until Drip is forced through

A snoopers' charter by the backdoor: One day until Drip is forced through: "As the explanatory notes for the legislation - released very quietly on Friday night – make clear, overseas telecommunications companies did not believe they were necessarily under Ripa's jurisdiction.

"Regarding the amendments to Ripa, in view of the suggestion by overseas telecommunications service providers that the extra-territorial effect of Ripa is unclear, it is considered necessary to amend the legislation to put the issue beyond doubt," it reads.

"This includes clarifying the definition of a 'telecommunications service' to ensure the full range of telecommunications services available to customers in the United Kingdom are included in the definition."" 'via Blog this'

Academic publishers draft and release their own Open Access licences

Academic publishers draft and release their own Open Access licences | TechnoLlama:

"In my opinion, all of the STM licences fail the Open Definition as they are non-commercial. Even the one that allows commercial uses (STM COM/NONCOM SL) does so by leaving a number of reserved commercial uses that are not included in the licence, which means that it ends up being an incredibly diluted version of the CC non-commercial licences, and does not appear to fall within the wide boundaries of the OD.

 Even using my much broader definition, the STM licences are very suspect from an openness perspective. On first reading, they appear to be open, but looking at the details they contain a couple of eye-watering clauses that for me make it incredibly narrow, and very difficult to comply with." 'via Blog this'

Does #DRIP Bill violate the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights?

EU Law Analysis: Does the UK’s new data retention bill violate the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights?:

"But even if all such safeguards are indeed provided for, I have argued previously that the broader interpretation of the Court’s judgment is correct: no mass surveillance is possible. If that is correct, then the provision in the draft Bill to permit a requirement to collect ‘all’ data is inherently suspect, and it would certainly be a breach of EU law to require telecom providers to retain all traffic data within the scope of the e-privacy Directive without some form of further targeting.

In conclusion, much of the UK’s draft Bill would, if adopted, fall within the scope of EU law, and therefore the Charter of Rights. It is possible, depending on the future statutory instrument, that the rules, when applied, will comply with the data retention safeguards demanded by the CJEU.

But the government’s intention, as manifested by the Bill, to reinstitute mass surveillance of telecoms traffic data is a clear breach of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights." 'via Blog this'