EDRI – New data protection rules asked by UK MPs: The Justice Committee of the UK House of Commons issued on 3 January 2008 a report on public data protection summarising the status and development of the topic, especially since the November 2007 Chancellor’s announcement to the Parliament related to the loss of confidential data records of 25 million people by HM Revenue and Customs.

The report that recommends a data breach notification law, criminal penalties for data controllers that are found responsible for breaching security, greater powers and financing for the Information Commissioner’s Office, follows the line of the recommendations made by the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee in August 2007 that were rejected at that time by the government.

EDRI: Just five days after the German President Horst Köhler approved the German data retention law that entered into force on 1 January 2008, the German Working group on data retention (Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung) challenged the law in the Federal German Constitutional Court.

The complaint was filed with the Court on 31 December 2007 and, for the first time in the German history, it was backed by 30 000 complainants. The 150-page notice of appeal requested an immediate suspension of the law on the grounds of “apparent unconstitutionality”.