Why do we need the data protection reform? How to protect right to personal data in new digital age? Could new, more harmonized law lead to better and more up-to-date protection? Katarzyna Szymielewicz (Panoptykon Foundation), Kirsten Fiedler (European Digital Rights) and Jan Albrecht (member of the European Parliament) discuss main problematic issues in current data protection framework (based on data protection directive from 1995) and solutions proposed by civil society and European Commission for the new regulation.

Poland celebrated its 25 years of democracy recently. In those two and a half decades, among other changes, most public institutions in Poland have got more or less used to citizens' control. It has taken years of advocacy and watchdog activity, as well as a number of court cases to decide whether a given piece of information is actually “public”. But this investment is now paying off: today even some of the most secret of all secret services answer freedom of information requests concerning their work. There is, however, a stain in the image: one agency – Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW) – that keeps refusing to disclose any kind of information about its activity. Their approach is a reminder of much deeper and systemic problem faced by Polish authorities: the uncontrolled and uncoordinated secret services.

Our new report: To Track or Not to Track? Towards Privacy-friendly and Sustainable Online Advertising shows that it’s actually possible to reform the ad tech industry without bankrupting online publishers. But in order to make that happen, EU policymakers must create a regulatory push by enforcing the GDPR and adopting new rules which would incentivise the uptake of alternatives.

Thanks to Panoptykon’s initiative bank customers in Poland will have the right to receive explanation of their creditworthiness. It’s the first right of this kind in Europe and a higher standard than the one envisioned in the GDPR.

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 process is in place? What do we know about disclosures of our data and how can we learn more? Katarzyna Szymielewicz explains, what we should know about state authorities access to citizens data and why. She also presents the results of Panoptykon Foundation’s research on public authorities’ access to the data of Internet services users.