International petition campaign against data retention

[Meryem Marzouki <marzouki@ras.eu.org>]

Dear all,

Please find hereafter the annoucement by EDRI (European digital rights, 
a federation of European NGOs) of an international petition campaign 
against data retention.

EDRI and ISP petition against data retention (available in English and
French) : http://www.dataretentionisnosolution.com

Meryem

===========================================================
2. EDRI launches petition against data retention
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.15/retention
===========================================================

European Digital Rights, together with the Dutch ISPs XS4ALL and Bit,
launched an international petition today against mandatory data 
retention.
The petition is aimed at the European Commission and the members of the
European Parliament.

EDRI argues that retention of telecommunication traffic data is an
invasive tool that interferes with the private life of all 450 million
people in the European Union. Secondly, the petition points out that 
data
retention is illegal under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human
Rights, because it is disproportionate. Thirdly, the petition explains
that security gained from retention may be illusory, as traffic data may
easily point to another user and finally, the means through which this
policy is being pursued are illegitimate.

In the next two months, EDRI hopes to collect an impressive amount of
signatures from all over Europe, to convince Commission and Parliament
that data retention is no solution against terrorism and crime. 
Supporters
are kindly invited to help distribute information about this petition, 
by
placing the banner on their sites or homepages and spread the news 
through
mailinglists.

The petition-initiative will be presented during the opening speech of 
the
open-air hacker event What the Hack, Thursday 28 July. During and after
the event, everybody is invited to contribute to the website by adding
translations in many other languages and back-ground files.

The petition script uses confirmed opt-in to verify every signature. 
This
means everybody has to provide the organisers with a valid e-mail 
address
to receive the confirmation. The e-mail address will not be used for any
other purpose. Only the name and country of every signer will be 
published
publicly on the website and presented to Commission and Parliament. The
specific privacy policy for this campaign guarantees that personal data
will only be used for this specific purpose and all personal data will 
be
destroyed after presentation of the list.

EDRI and ISP petition against data retention (available in English and
French)
http://www.dataretentionisnosolution.com