Poland has a history of interesting revolutions, including its famous, peaceful transition in 1989. No one, however, reasonably expected that the country would become the hub of a very unusual, civic revolt: a grassroots, non-partisan—some even say “cultural”—movement against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

The current Polish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) will remain on his post for another, second term after the Polish Parliament confirmed his nomination on 25 July 2014. The decision did not come as a surprise: Wojciech Wiewiórowski was the only candidate for the post and has an excellent background for the role. Just like during the previous nomination process four years ago, EDRi member Panoptykon monitored the process, to ensure its transparency to the public.

Five years ago data retention directive was adopted, introducing mandatory retention of the telecommunications of all citizens and resident of European Union. Since that time privacy movement against data retention in many European states has risen, national constitutional courts in Romania, Czech Republic and Germany have declared data retention laws illegal and case against directive is pending before the Court of Justice of the European Union. Civil society representatives, including Katarzyna Szymielewicz (Panoptykon Foundation), discuss problems regarding data retention directive, its evaluation and actions taken and needed to be taken to change European law in accordance with human rights.

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 retained by telcos and ISPs over 1.85 million times — half a million times more than in 2010. These findings underscore fundamental flaws in the Polish mandatory data retention law that was fast-tracked in legislation without public debate in 2009.

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 even more frustrating, our understanding of the real politics behind mass surveillance programmes as revealed by Snowden remains limited.