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<span style="font-size:9pt">2</span>
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<p class="header" style="margin-right:18.000000pt" awml:style="header">
European Regional Bureau Newsletter: 20 July 2019 – 26 July 2019
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<span style="font-family:'Hind Light';color:#3a82e4">Internet Access</span>
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<span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">EU: Brexit consequences on .eu domain</span>
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<span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">In the context of the preparations for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, the European Commission has released a</span> <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/eu_domain_names_en.pdf"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">document</span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'"> outlining Brexit’s repercussions over the use of the .eu domain.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Following the expected Brexit date of October 31, companies established in the UK will no longer be eligible to use the domain, nor will they be allowed to renew their license on the domain register.</span> <p style="text-align:justify">
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<span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">UK: New Prime Minister pledges massive broadband investments, despite Huawei trouble</span>
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<span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Britain’s new Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pledged a massive investment into upgrading the country’s fibre optic broadband network, one that could cost up to £30bn.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">The pledge comes amid tense conversations around which operators will provide the equipment for the British 5G rollout and the extent to which Chinese state-backed companies like Huawei should be given access.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Views from Huawei and the UK government remain contradictory. Huawei’s CEO Ren Zhengfei</span> <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/digital-brief-johnsons-huawei-conundrum/"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">told</span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'"> press earlier this week that it was “very likely Huawei products will be deployed in the UK’s core networks in the future”.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">However, former Digital Secretary Jeremy Wright,</span> <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/digital-brief-johnsons-huawei-conundrum/"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">told</span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'"> parliament last week that the government was “not yet in a position to decide what involvement Huawei should have in the provision of the UK’s 5G network”.</span> <p style="text-align:justify">
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<span style="font-family:'Hind Light';color:#3a82e4">Trust</span>
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<span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Global: Privacy International warn of 5G risks in a hyperconnected world</span>
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<span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">The NGO Privacy International</span> <a href="https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/3100/welcome-5g-privacy-and-security-hyperconnected-world-or-not"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">released</span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'"> a position paper on July 23 outlining the actions policy-makers should take to curb the risks of next generation networks.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">While 5G networks will enable higher download and upload rates, lower latency, and more connection density, the underlying physical infrastructure of the Internet will not change substantially. Governments or companies will still be able to use “exploitative techniques” like communications surveillance or data retention.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">On the security side, Privacy International acknowledge that upgrading the standards of 5G protocols will bring some improvements that will prevent the abuse of signalling protocols (needed for roaming), but old vulnerabilities will remain due to the coexistence with other protocols like 4G, 3G or 2G.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">To address these issues, Privacy International recommend corporations conduct privacy assessments and minimise the data they collect and retain, giving users information and control over how their devices work.</span> <p class="list_paragraph" style="text-align:justify" awml:style="List Paragraph">
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<span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">EU: Sweeping new rules to curb illegal online content revealed</span>
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<span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">The Financial Times has</span> <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e9aa1ed4-ad35-11e9-8030-530adfa879c2"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">obtained</span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'"> a leaked memo from the European Commission outlining its plans for a Digital Services Act, legislation that aims to increase the liability of platforms for the publication of online content and expected to be published at the end of 2020.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">The proposed Digital Services Act comes at a time when a flurry of other EU countries are legislating on measures to curb illegal online content, including in Germany (NetzDG), France (Avia law), and UK (the Online Harms Whitepaper).</span> <p style="text-align:justify">
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<span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">EU: Commission launches a call for proposals on data on the EU’s start-up landscape</span>
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<span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">The European Commission announced earlier this week the launch of a</span> <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/call-proposals-set-european-startup-and-scaleup-ecosystem-graph"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light';text-decoration:underline;color:#0563c1">tender</span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'"> for the provision of a service that studies the EU’s start-up and hub landscape and assess its overall contribution to the EU economy.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">The two main expected results are to strengthen the image of European ICT start-ups and scale-ups while contributing to more effective evidence-based policy-making. The deadline for applications is 23 September 2019.</span> <p style="text-align:justify">
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<span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">EU: Beware of hurting SMEs with GDPR, say European retailers</span>
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<span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Following the European Commission’s publication of its status</span> <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/communication_from_the_commission_to_the_european_parliament_and_the_council.pdf"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light';text-decoration:underline;color:#0563c1">report</span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'"> on the first year of GDPR implementation, the European association for retail and wholesale EuroCommerce has expressed its views on the topic.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">EuroCommerce’s Christian Verschueren</span> <a href="https://www.eurocommerce.eu/media/170623/2019.07.24 - GDPR one year onrev.pdf"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">believed</span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'"> that more efforts are needed to reduce regulatory burdens on companies, “particularly on the 4 million SMEs in our sector”.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">The association welcomes the Commission’s further cooperation with the private sector, but expects further clarifications on how companies can simplify their GDPR-compliance processes.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">The association of retailers also highlights potential contradictions and overlaps between the GDPR and the draft of the e-Privacy regulation, asking legislators to “ensure that the e-Privacy Regulation and GDPR are aligned and avoid obligations contradicting each other”.</span> <p style="text-align:justify;margin-left:36.000000pt">
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<span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">EU: NGOs push Commission to assess data retention</span>
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<span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Around 30 digital rights organisations, including EDRi and La Quadrature du Net, sent a</span> <a href="https://politico.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e26c1a1c392386a968d02fdbc&id=0db410b905&e=f8f19040b6"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">letter</span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'"> to the Commission’s president-elect Ursula von der Leyen and first vice-president Frans Timmermans to ask for “an independent, scientific study on the necessity and proportionality of existing and potential legislative measures around data retention.”</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">They also call on the EU executive to launch infringement procedures against countries enforcing data protection laws that are not compliant with the Court’s rulings.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">The groups argue that “blanket data retention is an invasive surveillance measure of the entire population”.</span> <p style="text-align:justify">
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<span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">EU: 27 Member States have already submitted their 5G networks risk assessment</span>
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<span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Speaking to the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE), Commissioner for the Security Union Julian King</span> <a href="https://twitter.com/cynthiakroet/status/1154040158477402113"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light';text-decoration:underline;color:#0563c1">announced</span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'"> this week that 27 out of 28 EU capitals had already submitted their national 5G network risk assessment.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">In an accompanying</span> <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-19-4266_en.htm"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light';text-decoration:underline;color:#0563c1">statement</span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">, the Commissioner said he was pleased to see that most Member States had submitted their risk assessments and that this work should continue: “We need all key players, big and small, to accelerate their efforts and join us in building a common framework aimed at ensuring consistently high levels of security”.</span> <p style="text-align:justify">
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<span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">EU: Hearing of new Cybersecurity Chief postponed</span>
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<span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Juhan Lepassaar, former Head of Cabinet to Andrus Ansip who served as Vice President of the Commission for the Digital Single Market, was scheduled to be grilled by Members of the European Parliament this week in the Industry, Research and Energy committee (ITRE) ahead of his appointment.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">But Lepassaar did not take the floor, agreeing instead with ITRE’s committee chair</span> <a name="_GoBack">
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<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Adina-Ioana Vălean to push back the hearing to September 2-3.</span> <p style="text-align:justify">
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<span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">France: Government signals U-Turn on the need for overhaul of platform rules</span>
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<span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Recent statements by French Digital Minister Cédric O indicates that the French government may be cooling on the idea of wide-reaching platform liability regulation.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Speaking to parliamentarians during a session this week, the minister expressed his reserves around developing a “third status” for platforms, telling the French Senate that this would be unacceptable to Nordic countries.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">The “third status” idea was floated by France, applying to companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter, to create a new status for companies that are not publishers, who are legally responsible for content, but not mere hosting providers.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Speaking about the proposed Digital Services Act, O said: “We saw [the DSA] in Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen’s working program. The revision of the e-commerce directive is a totem for her,” he said. “I wonder about tactics, it’s a very long battle”.</span> <p style="text-align:justify">
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<span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">France: New copyright law for press publishers adopted</span>
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<span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">The National Assembly voted on Tuesday to transpose the copyright directive’s Article 15 imposing a neighbouring right for press publishers, making France the first EU country to adapt national legislation to the controversial reform.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Hyperlinks and “very short extracts” of press articles are not covered by the new right, which will last two years.</span> <span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Hind Light'">Law-makers struggled to define what exactly constituted “very short extracts”, with the final text saying they are simply excluded from the neighbouring right as long as they cannot be substituted for the press article itself.</span> <p style="text-align:justify">
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