[Fsfe-uk] Re: EC Copyright Directive/tracking and Article 7

[Paul Mobbs]

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On Tuesday 13 August 2002  3:52 pm, you wrote:
> One aspects I'm not clear on, what happens when the publisher
> using such tracking systems for their copyrighted materials is
> not covered by EC safeguards on privacy.

EC Directive/Data Protection Act 1998 require that cotries outside EU have 
comperable data protection policies.

This almost caused a breakdown between US and Europe two years ago, but they 
signed a concordat in the interim, until the US makes a formal policy that 
can satisfy the EU.

In general then, if the transfer doesn't meet the EU standards on 
International transfers, it can't happen. but what if it does? My 
interpretation - technically you could use this as a legal excuse to block 
any tracking traffic locally destined for servers outside of the EU's data 
protection controls.


> In principal you can argue it is an end users choice to use a
> particular copyrightable work, but in reality this is not always
> the case, take suggested or compulsory reading for Univeristy
> degrees.

There is no choice - e.g. government education policy required training on 
Micro$oft systems.

This is actually a good arguement for application of the Human Rights Act 
because, through the action of the government as a whole, there is a de facto 
policy of making people use proprietary systems, and hence the possibility of 
having to disclose tracking data.

Let's also not forget that the tracking system's are not a pipe dream - they 
are an implicit part of M$'s '.Net' development strategy. Go to 
msdn.microsoft.com and have a read of the "HailStorm Strategy" - the terms of 
Article 7 of the Directive could have been written by M$'s legal section (and 
in fact, they probably had a lot to do with it!!)


P.

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Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations,
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