The history of Internet Law is littered with bad legislation and legislative proposals. From the infamous SOPA and PIPA, to the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill, there is no shortage of badly-conceived legislation dealing with the Internet. Sometimes the bad law is the result of powerful lobbying, sometimes it is caused Read more
One of the most long-lasting effects of Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 was that they presented strong evidence that national security agencies in the US and the UK were involved in serious indiscriminate mass surveillance programmes. Furthermore, one of the most revealing aspects was the fact that some of these Read more
The Court of Justice of the European Union has produced a landmark decision in Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner (C‑362/14). The ruling may have huge economic and political repercussions for the tech industry in the next months. This is a case that requires some context if you are unfamiliar Read more
The High Court of Justice has declared s1 of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 to be unlawful and contrary to European Law. The article in question is part of emergency surveillance legislation enacted last year by the coalition government. The Court was responding to a judicial review Read more
My social media timeline has been inundated in the last week with headlines warning that Whatsapp is about to be banned in the UK by the government. The UK’s mainstream media knows a good scandal when it sees one, and therefore it has picked up the story issuing hysterical headlines Read more
An open letter to all members of the House of Commons, Dear Parliamentarian, Ensuring the Rule of Law and the democratic process is respected as UK surveillance law is revised Actions Taken Under the Previous Government During the past two years, the United Kingdom’s surveillance laws and policies have come Read more
On 13 May 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union made a ground-breaking decision in the case of Costeja Gonzalez v Google Spain (C-131/12), which heralded the creation of the Right to Be Forgotten. As you may remember, Mario Costeja González, a Spanish citizen, had wanted a newspaper Read more
This week, comedian John Oliver landed a huge journalistic exclusive when he travelled to Russia to interview none other than Edward Snowden. Here is the clip, but bizarrely it cannot be viewed in the UK at the time of writing, so fire up your VPNs or proxies. I have to Read more
As we reported last year, an English court recognised the existence of a tort of privacy (more accurately, the tort of misuse of private information) in the case of Vidal-Hall v Google. The case involved a group of Google users who sued the search engine alleging that it had misused Read more
Gather around people, and hear the story I have to tell. This is a story of techno music, street rave parties, guerilla film-making, Internet memes, and one badass hulk of a man. Yes, this is the story of Technoviking. During the 2000 edition of the Love Parade in Berlin, protesters created Read more