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EU Governments Agree To Tougher Stance On E-evidence (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the up-next dept.

EU governments agreed on Friday to toughen up draft rules allowing law enforcement authorities to get electronic evidence directly from tech companies such as Facebook and Google stored in the cloud in another European country. From a report: The move underlines the growing trend in Europe to rein in tech giants whether on the regulatory front or the antitrust front. The e-evidence proposal also came in the wake of recent deadly terrorist attacks in Europe, pressure on tech companies to do more to cooperate with police investigations and people's growing tendency to store and share information on WhatsApp, Facebook, Viber, Skype, Instagram and Telegram.

The European Commission, the EU executive, came up with the draft legislation in April, which includes a 10-day deadline for companies to respond to police requests or 6 hours in emergency cases, and fines up to 2 percent of a company's global turnover for not complying with such orders. The proposal covers telecoms services providers, online marketplaces and internet infrastructure services providers and applies to subscriber data and other data on access, transactional and content.

10 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. NAZIS won... by quantic_oscillation7 · · Score: 2

    well looks like it....

    1. Re:NAZIS won... by gweihir · · Score: 2

      They did not win yet. The holy grail is forbidding any non-backdoored encryption.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  2. doesn't matter to me by olsmeister · · Score: 2

    Since I reside in the Apple ecosystem, all of the evidence of my wrongdoings are actually iEvidence.

  3. global what? by magarity · · Score: 1

    and fines up to 2 percent of a company's global turnover

    Assuming it is in their jurisdiction to get such information on a global scale, what exactly is "turnover"? Is this some newspeak term for income?

    1. Re:global what? by jamesborr · · Score: 1

      Try gross income, i.e. before costs or profit are figured in. If a company is in a 2% margin business, it would effectively be their entire worldwide profit for the year.

  4. People need a stimulating challenge by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Now they have to seek out software that cannot fall under such jurisdiction. There are plenty of alternatives.

    And really, if you don't want these laws on the books, you should be more careful who you vote for. All these problems are needlessly chronic and self inflicted.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:People need a stimulating challenge by MrMr · · Score: 1

      I agree that people should think before they vote, but the European Commission is not an elected body, and their statute actually specifically says they should represent Europe, and not some country or electorate. If you want to get rid of them you will need another box than the ballot box.

    2. Re:People need a stimulating challenge by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      I agree that people should think before they vote, but the European Commission is not an elected body

      The voters are supposed to hold it accountable to the European Parliament, which is directly elected by EU citizens. And if that doesn't help, people can vote their country out of the EU. Everything boils down to the voters' actions.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  5. Don't trust the cloud by gweihir · · Score: 1

    Nothing new. The fascists just have now put into law what they already have been doing for a long time.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  6. terrorism: the perfect excuse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm sick of all the rights people are losing all over the world with the excuse of terrorism... is it really that bad? how many people die because the pharmaceuticals inflate the price of their product beyond any ethical limit? I'm sure much more than because of terrorism, but you know? that last one have much more media coverage and makes people be afraid and let governments cut any right...

    I'm from Spain and we already had a surreally freedom cutting law some years back (search "ley mordaza"), and things are getting worse each year (sometimes because Europe, sometimes because Spain)

    please governments, I don't want security, I want to be free, I don't want police being able to look into my private life "easily", I choose to be "vulnerable" to terrorism rather than give up freedom.