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 EU:
New
report examines widespread deployment of automated decision-making
systems in policing, employment, social security and more
A new report by Algorithm
Watch says that automated decision-making systems of one
kind or another are in use in "almost all aspects of daily
life" across the EU.
Refugee
crisis: latest news from across Europe (22-28.1.19) including:
- Forced evictions
of centre for refugees and asylum-seekers in Italy
- UK-France
action plan on small boats crossing the Channel
- Council of
the EU discussion documents on Frontex, Returns Directive, and
Qualification and Resettlement Regulations
EU: Inclusion
of dual nationals in new criminal records database "incompatible"
with the right to non-discrimination
A new EU database approved by
the European Parliament's civil liberties committee last week
will breach the right to non-discrimination, according to a committee
of international legal experts.
UK-ECHR: Calls
for extremism database to be abolished as ECtHR rules UK police
violated peaceful pensioner's privacy rights
There have been calls for the
database on "domestic extremists" hosted by the Metropolitan
Police to be abolished following the European Court of Human
Rights (ECtHR) ruling last week that the police's failure to
delete data held on John Catt, a peaceful protester who is now
94 years old, violated his right to privacy.
EU: Visa
Information System: child fingerprinting and police access proposals
criticised by data protection authorities
European data protection authorities
have strongly criticised the European Commission's proposals
to extend the Visa Information System (VIS), arguing that the
lowering of the fingerprinting age for children, access to visa
data by law enforcement authorities and the storage of long-stay
visas and residence permits in the database fail to meet basic
data protection and fundamental rights standards.
GERMANY: Police
Laws in Saxony: Czech, Polish and German Criticism on Plans for
Facial Recognition in the Border Region (Digitalcourage,
link)
"Together with our Czech
partner organisation IURE and the Polish Panoptykon Foundation,
we strongly criticize the planned preventive automatic facial
recognition in the border region of the German federal state
of Saxony, the Czech Republic and Poland."
EU-POLAND: The
rule of law in Poland: reports from the Council's hearings
Statewatch is today publishing the two most recent
reports produced by the Council on its 'hearings' on the situation
of the rule of law in Poland, which have been held in the General
Affairs Council (GAC).
GREECE:
Protests
on Samos: demands for rights, freedom and healthcare
(Pressenza, link):
"...over the past 6 months
the refugee population on the island has grown and over the final
months of 2018 and the first few weeks of January 2019 has fluctuated
between 4000 and 5000 people. The Reception Centre has an official
capacity below 700 and as a result the majority of people now
live outside of the centres fences within an area referred to
as ‘the jungle’."
And see: a
marche des réfugiés africaine à samos
(You Tube, link)
European Parliament Study:
Fit
for purpose? The Facilitation Directive and the criminalisation
of humanitarian assistance to irregular migrants: 2018 Update
(pdf):
"Policing humanitarianism
negatively affects EU citizens’ rights – such as the
freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.
When civil society is effectively (self-)silenced and its accountability
role undermined, policies to combat migrant smuggling may be
overused and give rise to serious breaches of the EU’s founding
values, notably the rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights.
Moreover, policing humanitarianism negatively affects wider societal
trust and diverts the limited resources of law enforcement from
investigating more serious crimes."
Council of the European Union: Qualifications &
Resettlement Regulations - latest
Refugee
crisis: latest news from across Europe (10-21.1.19) including:
- Libya: Nightmarish
Detention for Migrants, Asylum Seekers
- Germany deports
record number of refugees to other EU states
- 'About 170
migrants dead' in Mediterranean shipwrecks
EU: Open
letter to European Institutions: public reporting must be a safe
option for whistleblowers (European Federation of Journalists,
link):
"The Council of the European
Union will soon adopt its general approach on the directive on
the protection of whistleblowers. Ahead of this crucial political
agreement among the Member States, the European Federation of
Journalists (EFJ) would like to insist about the importance of
granting the widest protection to whistleblowers, including persons
choosing to turn to the media to blow the whistle."
ITALY: Stefano
Cucchi: How one death in custody has become the symbol of police
brutality in Italy (Lacuna, link):
"The death in custody
of 31-year-old Stefano Cucchi has brought the abuse of police
power under scrutiny in Italy. After losing her brother and enduring
the subsequent trial, Ilaria Cucchi is now receiving harassment
and online threats from police officers. Sociologists say Stefano’s
case is not isolated and ask what the country will do to clean
up its policing."
See also: Statewatch Analysis:
Shocking
death spotlights prisoner plight (June 2010, pdf)
EU: Bulgaria
and Hungary are undermining the rule of law with "European
supervision"
According to analyses published
earlier this month by the website Verfassungsblog, the
Bulgarian and Hungarian governments are undermining the rule
of law and the independence of the judiciary whilst obtaining
nominal approval for their actions from institutions such as
the European Commission, the European Court of Human Rights and
the Council of Europe's Venice Commission (formally known as
the European Commission for Democracy through Law).
EU-IRELAND: Fingerprints
in passport cards: Irish government obtains opt-out
The Irish government has obtained
an opt-out from what would have been a requirement for the fingerprinting
of all holders of the country's passport card, which can be used
as a more convenient alternative to the standard passport book.
Germany's
intelligence agency to step up surveillance of AfD (The Local, link):
"Germany's domestic intelligence
will step up monitoring for political extremism of the far-right
AfD [Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany]
party, sources said Tuesday, a blow to the party in a busy election
year.
However, the agency has shied
away from immediate full surveillance of the entire party, including
phone and email taps, the use of undercover informants and the
collection of personal data on MPs."
PSNI
agrees to publish policy on biometric data retention in court
case settlement (Irish
Legal News, link):
"The PSNI will publish
a formal public policy on its retention of biometric data after
settling a case brought by the Northern Ireland Human Rights
Commission (NIHRC).
The NIHRC issued judicial
review proceedings against the PSNI in December 2017 on behalf
of an individual who wanted them to erase fingerprints and DNA
retained after the individual was arrested in 2009."
Irish
passport card holders to be fingerprinted under new EU rules
New EU rules
on national identity cards and travel documents will "compel
Ireland to introduce fingerprinting" of all holders of the
Irish passport card, according to a document
circulated by the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the EU (pdf).
Refugee
crisis: latest news from across Europe (3-9.1.19) including:
- Sea Watch
and Sea Eye allowed to disembark in Malta
- Man dies
in Moria camp on Lesvos, Greece and Oxfam condemns conditions
- Italian mayors
oppose Salvini's migration decree
- UN report
on conditions faced by migrants and refugees in Libya
UPDATED: Statewatch
Observatory: Creation of a centralised Justice & Home Affairs
database The Observatory has
been updated with new documents.
EU: New
Schengen Information System rules in force: deportation decisions
to be included, new types of police check permitted
At the end of December three
new Regulations governing the Schengen Information System II
(SIS II), the EU's largest database and information system for
law enforcement and migration purposes, came into force.
UN report: Desperate
and Dangerous: Report on the human rights situation of migrants
and refugees in Libya
(pdf)
Northern
Ireland's hidden borders (Verso, link):
"This [racial profiling
at the borders between the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland
and mainland UK] is likely to become worse after Brexit, for
a larger number of people, whatever solution is reached about
the border... Operation Gull targets communities of colour, violates
the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement, and has no place Ireland.
It’s time for Gull to go."
Europol
to coordinate hacking authorities in Member States (link):
"European police should
access computers and telephones with Trojan programs. Europol
is now building up a "decryption platform“ in The Hague.
The European Union wants to
support the Member States in intercepting telecommunications.
Investigators should be able to penetrate private computers or
mobile phones to install software to read encrypted messages.
This was confirmed by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior
(MOI) in response to a question by a Left Party Member of Parliament.
The focus is on the police agency Europol, which has been commissioned
to set up a „decryption platform“.
See also: Statewatch Analysis:
EU
agrees rules for remote computer access by police forces
(pdf)
Top reports
See: Resources
for researchers: Statewatch Analyses: 1999-ongoing
SECILE Project:
Borderline: The EU's New Border Surveillance Initiatives:
Assessing the Costs and Fundamental Rights Implications of EUROSUR
and the "Smart Borders" Proposals (pdf) A study by the
Heinrich Böll Foundation. Written by Dr. Ben Hayes and Mathias
Vermeulen: "Unable to tackle the root of the problem,
the member states are upgrading the Union’s external borders.
Such a highly parochial approach taken to a massive scale threatens
some of the EU’s fundamental values - under the pretence
that one’s own interests are at stake. Such an approach
borders on the inhumane."
How the EU works and justice and home
affairs decision-making (pdf)
Statewatch's
20th Anniversary Conference, June 2011: Statewatch
conference speeches
TNI/Statewatch:
Counter-terrorism,
'policy laundering' and the FATF - legalising surveillance, regulating
civil society
(pdf) by Ben Hayes
Statewatch publication:
Guide
to EU decision-making and justice and home affairs after the
Lisbon Treaty
(pdf) by Steve Peers, Professor of Law, University of Essex,
with additional material by Tony Bunyan
Neoconopticon: the EU security-industrial
complex
(pdf) by Ben Hayes
The Shape of Things to Come (pdf) by Tony Bunyan
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