Search Engines Should Become Government Spies Says EU Parliament

international | crime and justice | opinion/analysis

Friday September 24, 2010 22:45

by Clodagh

In the decade of widespread access to information technology and all the sucess, it has brought few, there are still an abundance of laws that need to be amended. While the business elites were re packaging the internet which later became known as the user friendly World Wide Web. There are a lot of unresolved problems that have yet to be dealt with such as criminality on the internet, the buying and selling of stolen goods, weapons, human trafficing, snuff video's and of course,peadophilia. In some countries for instance it is not illegal to view naked images of young girls and boys. If European citizens are law abiding and have nothing to hide, they should have no problem with declaration 29.

A proposal to retain all Internet search traffic, known as "Written Declaration 29," was adopted by the European Parliament last week. Framed as a measure to crack down on paedophiles, the controversial Declaration calls on the EU to require that search engines store all search traffic for up to two year

search engine of the sick and twisted..?

A draconian proposal to retain all Internet search traffic, known as "Written Declaration 29," was adopted by the European Parliament last week. Framed as a measure to crack down on paedophiles, the controversial Declaration calls on the EU to require that search engines store all search traffic for up to two years.

''Search engine Ixquick (www.ixquick.com), widely regarded as the world's most private search engine, has built a strong privacy reputation. The company believes it has been singled out by the data retention proposal, and it has vowed to strongly oppose the measure becoming law.''
Robert Beens, CEO of Ixquick. "We have worked hard to create a privacy-friendly search engine that embodies the.. ' spirit ' of EU Privacy Protections, in line with the strict recommendations of the EU Article 29 Data Protection Working Party. This Declaration is evidence that the left hand of the EU does not know what the right hand is doing."''''?

''Mr. Beens fears that if the measure becomes law, it will vastly undermine the privacy of over 500 million law-abiding EU citizens. Storing everyone's search data, rather than restricting surveillance to known or suspected offenders would give the government access to a rich trove of political, medical, professional, and personal data on virtually every person in Europe. ''

''Ixquick will join the public campaign started by PI... to stop the provisions of Written Declaration 29 from becoming law.''