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Article European Court of Human Rights: secret surveillance in Poland violates citizens’ privacy rights According to the precedent judgment announced today by the European Court of Human Rights, the operational-control regime, the retention of communications data, and the secret-surveillance regime under the Anti-Terrorism Act in Poland violate the right to privacy. The activists from Poland’s… Text
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Article Panoptykon Foundation challenges the data retention regime in Poland: Telecom companies requested to delete activists’ data Panoptykon Foundation supports activists and attorney-at-law Artur Kula to demand four biggest telecom companies in Poland to delete data stored for the purpose of law enforcement in the last 12 months. They want to challenge the current unlawful data retention regime in Poland. Text
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Article Successful advocacy: the government declares no further extension of data retention obligation Data retention obligation will not be further extended in Polish law on electronic communication. However, the current, unlawful scope of telecommunication data retention remains unchanged. Our advocacy effort proved successful. Text
Article Why should you know who has been asking about you?, re:publica 2014 [VIDEO] In the post-Snowden world we became well aware that data we store on servers belonging to private companies tends to have a second life. It is where secret services and law enforcement meet the Internet. How to prevent bulk transfers from private to public data bases? How to make sure that due… Text
Article Polish NGO to Obama: Mass Surveillance Is Not Freedom On June 4, 2014, one day before the anniversary of the Snowden revelations, Poland celebrates 25 years since the fall of an authoritarian regime. On this occasion, President Obama is visiting Poland and meeting with many heads of states—including officials who were affected by the mass surveillance… Text
Article Do Something About Your Digital Shadow, TEDx 2014 [VIDEO] Privacy is not about hiding things that we want to keep secret. It is about our right to choose, when, for what purpose and who can see certain data about us. It’s about control. Even data that might seem meaningless, like separate internet application logs or IP address that changes apparently… Text
Article Silence remains the easiest answer: Polish non-reactions to Snowden’s disclosures We are fast approaching an anniversary of first disclosures made by Edward Snowden. Even though the fundaments of our trust in democratic institutions and human rights safeguards have been shaken, political reality as seen from the European perspective remains more or less intact. What may seem… Text
Article Polish attempt at a “transparency report” In our first attempt at a “transparency report”, we looked at what happens at the interface of Internet service providers and public authorities in Poland. Who sends requests for users' data? How many and for what purpose? What legal procedures are followed and what safeguards apply? Our pilot… Text
Report Access of public authorities to the data of Internet service users. Seven issues and several hypotheses The report looks at what happens at the interface of Internet service providers and public authorities in Poland. Who sends requests for users data, how many and for what purpose, what legal procedures are followed and what safeguards apply. During our research we analysed legal provisions and… Text
Article Surveillance after Snowden, 6th Biannual Surveillance & Society Conference [VIDEO] The story of post-Snowden debate is a story of crossing the redlines that never should be crossed in democratic society. After at least 10 years of allegations, we gained evidence showing that surveillance is not about fighting terrorism or even public security. It is about intelligence agencies… Text
Article European Data Retention Directive At Work: Polish Authorities Abuse Access to Users' Data The Polish digital rights group Panoptykon Foundation recently published harrowing findings regarding abuses of Poland’s mandatory data retention law. Using a Freedom of Information Act request, Panoptykon obtained documents that reveal that in 2011, Polish authorities requested users’ traffic data… Text
Article Where the Law Enforcement Meets the Internet: Polish Struggle for More Transparency, PDF Poland-CEE 2014 [VIDEO] Before Snowden’s revelations we had known about FISA – law that mandates big companies to cooperate with U.S. intelligence agencies and revealed data about us, but we have not been aware of the scale and the depth of that surveillance. On the basis of this new information about NSA’s mass… Text