Secret Printer ID Codes May Be Illegal In the EU

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "In response to a query from a member of the EU Parliament, an EU commissioner issued an official statement (.DOC) saying that, while they do not violate any laws, secret printer tracking dot codes may violate the human right to privacy guaranteed by the EU's Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. If you don't remember what these are, Slashdot has discussed the issue before. In short, most color printers print small yellow dots on every sheet in a code that identifies the printer and, potentially, its owner. The EFF is running an awareness campaign, and a couple of years back made a start on deciphering the yellow dot code."

Comments

Human Rights or European Citizen Rights?

[Anonymous Coward]

... secret printer tracking dot codes may violate the human right to privacy guaranteed by the EU's Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. I'm thinking that I would like to see a meeting between the EU's Convention of Human Rights & the EU's European Commission.

First topic on the agenda: biometrics for visitors.

Or was privacy only guaranteed to European Citizens?

"human right to privacy"

[TheGratefulNet]

I love the sound of that.

however, in today's terror-terrorized (is that a new expression?) world, there IS no more 'right to privacy'.

I wish there was! but even in europe, there really is not a right to privacy.

even in the US constitution, is there ANY real clauses that talk about right to privacy? other than illegal search and seizure (which has been bastardized into 'we can invade your house and do a sneek-and-peek anytime we SAY so') - there is no right to privacy.

it should be added as a fundamental right, but I don't expect it anytime soon. too much power is gotton by violating your privacy. power is addicting and so the gov won't ever give THAT one back. horse has long left the barn..

Nobody noticed...

[Poodleboy]

Doesn't anyone notice that the EU's "official statement" was released as a .DOC file? So, if I'm a citizen of the EU, I have to pay money to Microsoft to participate in my government?

What's worse is that we're so inured to this sort of thing, nobody even noticed!

Fenestrae delendae sunt.

Re:Tag badsummary.

[ddrichardson]

The idea is to prevent someone from printing $100 bills/IDs/etc on their printer.

Yes but that doesn't mean that it could not be used by, say an agency that wishes to monitor who is distributing political leaflets for example. Looking at the US from the outside, freedom of speech and the press are wonderful - it seems that your government is accessing more and more ways to check how you are using those freedoms.

Re:Simple enough fix

[KublaiKhan]

Could be useful in other ways, if you could incriminate someone else's printer by printing the right code...

virtual MOD points.

[JonTurner]

Best suggestion yet.
Yes, in theory adding random dots would introduce noise into the signal and potentially degrade it to the points it's no longer useful, but only if you can interfere with the pattern. Put another way, unless you know the location of the dot codes, to reach the level of noise necessary to obscure you'd have to cover the page; there would be so many random yellow dots so as to be perceptible.