One single app to rent a hotel room, prove your age, your educational, financial or health certificates, or to access digital public and private services? Sounds convenient? Well, it is. But if done wrong, it will be equally easy for corporations, authorities or even bad actors to create highly…

The GDPR is five years old! This is well worth a drum roll because it marks the anniversary of a fairly uniform data protection standard in Europe. It is a Regulation and as such applicable in EU member states without the need for transposition into national law. And while its so-called “opening…

The rapid speed at which digital technologies are becoming increasingly connected and penetrate all areas of life also requires constant adaptation of legal regulations. This development also extends to the fighting of crime. Despite existing regulations at the regional level (for example, the…

In a press conference held today, the European Commission has initiated the end of privacy and confidentiality of communications on the internet in Europe. The proposed new legislation would require hosting and messenger providers to search the content of their users for potentially illegal content…

The European Union is about to redefine the ecodesign criteria for products in several legislative proposals, including the Sustainable Product Initiative, the Circular Electronics Initiative, and the Right to Repair. These proposals aim at extending the usage time of hardware and facilitating…

At the start of the trial against security adviser Julian Hessenthaler, who played a key role in the making of the so-called Ibiza video¹, 18 Austrian and international human rights organisations express their concern that his excessive criminal prosecution could – intentionally – have a deterring…

Research is important. Using research as a cover to obtain unchecked access to sensitive official data is not.

At the beginning of July, the Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, submitted to pre-parliamentary consultation a bill that would cause a seismic shift in how the government treats its…

Today, the European Parliament votes on the interinstitutional compromise text on the regulation(s) on the EU Digital COVID Certificate (EU DCC, also known as the Digital Green Certificate and the European Green Pass). The proposed legislation regulates the “framework for the issuance, verification…

Even though its effects are very visible, the ePrivacy Directive is hardly known to the wider public. Cookie consent dialogues, familiar to every web user, are often associated with GDPR and widely complained about since 2018. However, they are really a consequence of the ePrivacy Directive's…

On April 28, 2021, the European Parliament adopted its position on the Covid Pass (the "Digital Green Certificate" or "Green Passport"). The legislative proposal has been designed to make travel within the EU possible again. The proposal aims to provide EU countries with a common framework which…