Polish Constitutional Tribunal decided yesterday that the Act of 22 December 2015 amending the Constitutional Tribunal Act was enacted in breach of the Constitution. E.g. the Sejm violated the rule that bills are considered in the course of three readings.

On 22 June, Polish president signed a new anti-terrorism law. The law contains measures that are inconsistent with the Polish Constitution and with the European Convention on Human Rights. The list of controversies is long: foreigners’ phone calls might be wire-tapped without a court order, and police might collect their fingerprints, biometric photos and DNA if their identity is “doubtful”. Online content might be blocked, citizens' freedom of assembly limited, and secret services are given free access to all public databases.

This year we commemorate 15th anniversary of tragic attacks on the World Trade Center September 11, 2001. This date also marks the beginning of the global war on terror. What are the losses and the gains of these 15 years?

From May 25th the new General Data Protection Regulation will come fully into force. From Panoptykon’s point of view it is a change for the better. The GDPR is the outcome of the legislative process which we were engaged in from the very beginning (already when the European Commission announced the public consultation in October 2010!). Thanks to the new regulation it will be easier for us to fight against bad practices of companies that until now exploited our personal data and calculated profit without even noticing our rights.