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Search - "unlawful"
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Although it might not get much follow up stuffs (probably a few fines but that will be about it), I still find this awesome.
The part of the Dutch government which keeps an eye on data leaks, how companies handle personal data, if companies comply with data protection/privacy laws etc (referring to it as AP from now on) finished their investigation into Windows 10. They started it because of privacy concerns from a few people about the data collection Microsoft does through Windows 10.
It's funny that whenever operating systems are brought up (or privacy/security) and we get to why I don't 'just' use windows 10 (that's actually something I'm asked sometimes), when I tell that it's for a big part due to privacy reasons, people always go into 'it's not that bad', 'oh well as long as it's lawful', 'but it isn't illegal, right!'.
Well, that changed today (for the netherlands).
AP has concluded that Windows 10 is not complying with the dutch privacy and personal data protection law.
I'm going to quote this one (trying my best to translate):
"It appears that Microsofts operating system follows every step you take on your computer. That gives a very invasive image of you", "What does that mean? do people know that, do they want that? Microsoft should give people a fair chance for deciding this by themselves".
They also say that unless explicit lawful consent is given (with enough information on what is collected, for what reasons and what it can be used for), Microsoft is, according to law, not allowed to collect their telemetrics through windows 10.
"But you can turn it off yourself!" - True, but as the paragraph above said, the dutch law requires that people are given more than enough information to decide what happens to their data, and, collection is now allowed until explicitly/lawfully ok'd where the person consenting has had enough information in order to make a well educated decision.
I'm really happy about this!
Source (dutch, sorry, only found it on a dutch (well respected) security site): https://security.nl/posting/534981/...8 -
The German constitutional court (BverfG) declared many part of the law regulating the German secret agency "Bundesnachrichtendienst" (Federal Intelligence Service; BND) for unlawful and unconstitutional.
The key points:
- The freedom of press and the right for privacy are human rights, not just for Germans
- Uncontrolled and targetless, without protection for e.g. foreign journalists
- No independent control institution
- Lawmakers completely did not mention why they see a reason why human rights can be restricted, but intentionally did not respect them
- There must be specific reasons to give data to other countries' secret agencies
Sources (in German):
- https://spiegel.de/netzwelt/...
- https://golem.de/news/...
-9 -
Now that prick that was my business partner did something really really stupid: he hired a collection agency to make me pay an invoice that was not even due! Of course, this is completely unlawful but this agency is now threatening to sue me if I don't pay because I promised to pay a part of the costs. Well, that promise was indeed made however at a later moment in time mr. Prick signed a contract at the notary office agreeing to take all costs on him. Collection agency says my earlier promise is what matters but I don't believe that is true.
Oh well, mr. Prick's website has been unreachable most of the day. This unreproducable, weird behavior will keep on popping up the next couple of days, weeks or even years. That happens when mr. Prick doesn't know the domain is still owned by me. So yeah, go fuck yourself, prick.4