Lucie Krahulcova

Access Now provided testimony for the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) on Net Neutrality, working to keep the internet open and free all across Europe.

Last week, the UK Court of Appeal sent the David Davis data retention case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for clarification. How the CJEU responds could have implications for data retention across the EU.

Earlier today, the French Senate adopted the highly controversial Projet de loi sur la surveillance des communications internationales, better known as the Surveillance bill. The bill enables the indiscriminate mass surveillance of millions of individuals in France and abroad, with no mechanism for independent oversight and judicial control. It is now only a matter of days before François Hollande, the President of France, signs the bill into law.

Earlier this year, the three major European institutions reached an agreement in the Telecoms Single Market trialogue, where lawmakers made several ambitious promises. Among them was the promise to enshrine Net Neutrality rules concretely into EU law. The aim: to guarantee Europeans the “most comprehensive open internet rules,” and to prevent fragmenting equitable cross-border internet services that are in a single market. However, as it stands, the legislation is not yet clear enough to realize these grand ambitions.

Last week the French National Assembly — the lower chamber of the French Parliament — adopted a Surveillance Bill that would enable mass surveillance of international phone calls and allow the government tap French undersea cables to vacuum up all internet traffic.