[governance] CoE adopts (good) Recommendation on FoE and Internet Filters
Meryem Marzouki
marzouki at ras.eu.org
Fri Mar 28 06:10:53 EDT 2008
Dear all,
The Council of Europe has now adopted its Recommendation on "measures
to promote the respect for freedom of expression and information with
regard to Internet filters" (Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)6, adopted on
26 March 2008).
It is at: https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?Ref=CM/Rec(2008)6
An explanatory report can be found at: https://wcd.coe.int/
ViewDoc.jsp?Ref=CM(2008)37&Ver=add
This Recommendation is a good one, to my knowledge the best text to
date on Internet filters and FoE provided by an intergovernemental
institution.
The Recommendation has been prepared by the CoE group of specialists
on human rights in the information society, to which EDRI (European
digital rights, www.edri.org) is an active observer. I'm reproducing
below part of an article published on 21 November 2007 in EDRI
newsletter, after the last meeting of the group of specialists, as a
report on this meeting:
"Members and observers of the MC-S-IS group discussed the documents
prepared by Austria (MC-S-IS group vice-chair) and Armenia
representatives, with the help of the MC-S-IS Secretariat as well as
of EDRI as observer. EDRI had the opportunity to suggest many changes
to both documents before their submission to the whole group, and
almost all these changes were included.
As many members of the group acknowledged, this Recommendation would
be the first important document breaking off the usual national,
European and international rhetoric of "technical filtering panacea"
to fight illegal or harmful content, in that it reintroduces the need
to respect human rights standards, first and foremost freedom of
expression, but also the right to privacy and other provisions of the
European Convention of Human Rights, including the rule of law
principle. One member, namely Norway, insisted though on the
"impression the documents gave that governments wont be allowed to
any content filtering of blocking" anymore, but it was rather
isolated in such position.
The final draft document recommends that CoE member States "take
measures to promote the respect for freedom of expression and
information as regards technical filtering measures in line with
provided guidelines", as well as "to bring these guidelines to the
attention of all relevant private and public sector stakeholders, in
particular those who design, activate, use and monitor technical
filtering measures, and civil society, so that they can contribute to
their implementation."
The draft Recommendation sets out detailed guidelines on: (I) "Using
and controlling filters in order to fully exercise and enjoy the
right to freedom of expression and information", (II) "Appropriate
filtering for children and young people", and (III) "Use and
application of filtering systems by State actors and the private
sector"."
(Full article at: http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.22/coe-content-
regulation)
Best,
Meryem Marzouki
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
For all list information and functions, see:
http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
More information about the Governance
mailing list