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EU Seeks New Powers To Obtain Data 'Directly' From Tech Firms (zdnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the streamlined-access dept.

Zack Whittaker reports via ZDNet: European authorities are seeking new powers to allow police and intelligence agencies to directly obtain user data stored on the continent by U.S. tech companies. The move comes in the wake of an uptick in terrorist attacks, including several attacks in Britain and France, among others across the bloc. Tech companies have been asked to do more to help law enforcement, while police have long argued the process for gathering data overseas is slow and cumbersome. The bloc's justice commissioner, Vera Jourova, presented several plans to a meeting of justice ministers in Luxembourg on Thursday to speed up access for EU police forces to obtain evidence -- including one proposal to allow police to obtain data "directly" from the cloud servers of U.S. tech companies in urgent cases. "Commissioner Jourova presented at the Justice Council three legislative options to improve access to e-evidence," said Christian Wiga, an EU spokesperson, in an email. "Based on the discussion between justice ministers, the Commission will now prepare a legislative proposal," he added. Discussions are thought to have included what kind of data could be made available, ranging from geolocation data to the contents of private messages. Such powers would only be used in "emergency" situations, said Jourova, adding that safeguards would require police to ensure that each request is "necessary" and "proportionate." Further reading: Reuters

19 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. 'Emergency' indeed by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now all you need is to declare a never-ending 'state of emergency' and you can take whatever you want from whomsoever you want, whenever you want, and shoot anyone in the face who gets in your way.

    1. Re:'Emergency' indeed by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

      The UKs National Threat Level has been at "severe or "critical" for 9 of the last 11 years. We are already in the midst of a never ending emergency, the UK government would *love* this...

    2. Re:'Emergency' indeed by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 2

      Where do you think I got the idea from? it's the backdoor way of instituting an authoritarian/dictatorship government. Constant state of emergency. Police state. Later, curfews, and shootings if you're out when you're not allowed to be. Doors kicked in. Black bags over peoples' heads. Police in full jackbooted-thug mode. Go watch V For Vendetta again for a full explanation.

    3. Re:'Emergency' indeed by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      See: https://yro.slashdot.org/comme...

    4. Re:'Emergency' indeed by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

      H.L. Mencken.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    5. Re:'Emergency' indeed by manu0601 · · Score: 1

      France, for example, has been in a state of emergency since 2015

      And after initial investigations,it was mostly used to silence protesters, according to Amnisty International.

  2. Before you act outraged... by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Before you start shouting, consider that these tech companies are using your data and selling and sharing it to anyone they want. So just stop. You should be more concerned that the data exists in the first place.

    1. Re:Before you act outraged... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      You mean the anonymous encrypted data that Apple deletes after six months?

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    2. Re:Before you act outraged... by Hentes · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If that was true, the police could just buy the dataset without any need for legislation. But user data is too valuable for tech companies to directly sell it. Instead, they sell all sorts services built on top of the data. For example, you can post an ad on Google or Facebook that only working class middle aged red-haired women with breast cancer and a passion for model railways can see, but you won't know who those people actually are.

    3. Re:Before you act outraged... by david.emery · · Score: 1

      I think I know 2 people that would get this ad. I don't know about the cancer thing, but they match the other criteria.

  3. possible futures. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Possible futures:

    (a) Because terrorism / the children, the internet finishes dying as a means of free, open, un-censored and un-surveilled communication between human beings. All communication happens on a handful of central services subject to pressure from governments all around the world.

    (b) People learn to communicate without centralization, using strong encryption, as the standard form of online socialization. No one in the middle gets to see, profit from, or surveil the plain-text.

    1000000:1 odds on (a).

    1. Re:possible futures. by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      In the current socio-political climate, it's going to end up being Option A. Only fools and the tragically uninformed will use the Internet for anything important.
      Currently, it's basically impossible to conduct your lifes' business using the Internet and have any reasonable modicum of privacy. I've tried using Tor, and while the Captchas all over the place (usually because of Cloudfront) are annoying but negotiable, there are sites that flat-out won't allow you access of any kind if you're on Tor; wanting to order a pizza online from Dominos is something you could work around (walk around the corner, order it in person, pay cash) there were a few others that aren't necessarily physically accessible that just plain wouldn't work with Tor. I considered a VPN, but that's one more thing to pay for every month, and there's ZERO guarantee of your privacy there, either. So no matter what you do, one way or another anymore, someone is storing data on you -- which means your government, sooner or later, will strong-arm someone into giving up the data they have on you. Kind of like Wargames, the only way to win this game is to not play. :-( That's what I think will eventually kill the Internet: too many people get too pissed off about too much invasion of their lives, and they'll just stop using it. It would be hard at first to go back to not using it, but it can be done.

    2. Re:possible futures. by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Someone needs to present people with the minute-by-minute transcripts of everything they do and say on the Internet, then they'll see how much they care about being surveilled 24/7/365.

  4. This is great! by elcor · · Score: 1

    1- that the EU is calling attention to itself so much, people may realize that they never elected these politicians in the first place. 2- that it's bringing attention to companies harvesting us for Data. So bring on the outrage and focus it to one thing: taking back your power. We don't need apps, we don't need corporations we don't need politicians or anyone else to format who we are.

  5. Quick, who do we blame? by locater16 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Oh no, another terrorist attack and people expect US to do something to stop them! Quick, who can we deflect the blame to? The internet, of course. It's all their fault,terrorists never existed before the internet. Or something. Assistant boy, to the press release!

    1. Re:Quick, who do we blame? by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      So one wonders how much planing is required to go to the discount shop buy a knife and then hire a truck and pick a crowded spot. One assumes it must require a whole organisation, to plan that, discussion going back and forth on what type of knife to buy, where to buy it from, what brand of knife, how long you should own the knife before the attack to prevent being flagged for owning a knife and the truck, where to rent it, what brand of truck, how much fuel to buy and the target location, oh wait, no planning at required, just but burgers waffling on with their religious nut baggery till they finally snap, grab a knife from the kitchen, open the phone book and rent a truck and pick the first major target that pops into their empty heads (keep in mind they managed to miss a country planning to fly planes into buildings and all the planning and support that was required to carry that out, even aligning it with secretive government activities to ensure success and having a film crew on hand to record it and celebrate, in fact the efforts of three countries and they all missed that).

      Reality is, don't want them to do this, do not let them in the country. This kind of attack can quite readily be carried out by tourist terrorists, barely any planning required what so ever. Especially do not let people in from countries that you are attacking or have destroyed, they are very likely to be highly motivated to attack and after suffering that militaristic depredations from your country, they are likely to be some what mentally unstable (plus the lesson that prayer does not do very much good at all, basically your sky person wish machine is broken).

      So it is all about mass internet censorship, attacking and silencing all political activists and targeting real journalists, anything that threatens the utterly corrupt establishment, the psychopathic order disorder (crazed individuals pursuing their own greed and ego at the expense of the entirely of human society).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    2. Re:Quick, who do we blame? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      A holy book, a place of worship and some funds. A person with the documents to rent or buy what is needed.
      The security services need to track the funding, support groups, faith and law reform groups who support fund and hide the people of interest, find all the people in the nation who are supporters, stop the flow of all new supporters into a nation.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  6. Let them have it. Who cares? by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    We're supposed to be developing adequate encryption and ad hoc mesh networks to bypass the ISPs anyway.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  7. Re:Again? by NatHoward · · Score: 1

    Yes. I would love to see the list of bureaucrats imprisoned under similar regimes for non-emergency use of this "emergency only" access. Due to sophisticaed data compression, I feel confident that I can store this list in a zero-byte file.