Blog

19 Nov 2007 By Becky Hogge

Open Rights Group: Our first two years

Today I’m proud to be able to publish a review of the Open Rights Group’s first two years of activity, including our first year’s accounts.

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15 Nov 2007 By Becky Hogge

Electoral Commission: “e-voting not a mature technology”

Many thanks to Glyn for watching, and transcribing the most interesting bits of, the Scottish Affairs Committee public evidence session in the House of Commons earlier this week.

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13 Nov 2007 By Jordan

Open Source Summit Review

The resounding message of the Olswang’s and Greenberg Traurig’s Friday Open Source Summit (PDF) was that software patents are bad for business.

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13 Nov 2007 By Becky Hogge

Open Rights Group dismayed by Ministry of Justice response on e-voting

In the May 2007 local elections Open Rights Group observers, accredited by the Electoral Commission, took part in the monitoring of pilot electronic voting and electronic counting schemes.

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09 Nov 2007 By Becky Hogge

iPlayer: Open Rights Group on Groklaw

My interview with Sean Daly at Groklaw went online this morning: Q: Now, let’s talk about DRM for a moment.

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01 Nov 2007 By William Heath

ORG appoints new directors

We’re delighted to announce three new appointments to the Open Rights board of directors.

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31 Oct 2007 By Michael Holloway

Supporters Update – October 2007

Here – for your enjoyment – is this month’s Supporters Update.

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30 Oct 2007 By Becky Hogge

Parents (and everyone else too): have your say in the Byron Review

The Byron Review is an independent review of the risks to children from exposure to potentially harmful or inappropriate material on the internet and in video games.

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29 Oct 2007 By Michael Holloway

Government wants to be open

The results of the Freedom of Information (FoI) consultation are now public.

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24 Oct 2007 By Jason Kitcat

Gould Review on Scottish Elections Published

The Electoral Commission and the separate review by Ron Gould that the Commission instituted have published their reports on the Scottish elections of May 2007 The Gould Review in particular identifies a number of important issues, many of which ORG addressed in our own report on the elections published this June.

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24 Oct 2007 By Glyn Wintle

Microsoft accepts EC competition ruling on interoperability info: analysis

It’s taken a while to pick apart Neelie Kross’s announcement that Microsoft have accepted the conditions of the European Commission’s 2004 ruling on abuse of market position.

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22 Oct 2007 By Becky Hogge

TV-links.co.uk – the story so far…

Today, and following this report in the Guardian, the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) reported the arrest of the proprietor of tv-links.

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22 Oct 2007 By Suw Charman Anderson

Creative Business in the Digital Era

The Open Rights Group, in collaboration with 01zero-one and funded by the London Development Agency, is beginning an exciting new research project, examining how the internet enables creative entrepreneurs to develop innovative business practices by being more open with their intellectual property.

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17 Oct 2007 By Michael Holloway

Support ORG (and look good doing it)

With Open Rights Group slowly but surely becoming a cultural icon, marked most recently by our logo’s appearance on Channel 4’s ‘The IT Crowd’, now is the perfect time to donate to digital liberties.

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16 Oct 2007 By Becky Hogge

BBC U-turn: Full iPlayer service may never be available to Mac and Linux Users

Yesterday, the BBC announced that a cross-platform “streamed” version of its on-demand service the iPlayer would be available by the end of the year.

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11 Oct 2007 By Becky Hogge

UK Government accused of breaching state aid rules in software procurement

On Tuesday, John Pugh MP led an adjournment debate on IT software procurement, where he accused the UK government of excluding Linux and Mac Users from government services such as the Department of Work and Pensions online benefits system.

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09 Oct 2007 By Becky Hogge

Today: Westminster Hall debate on government software procurement

John Pugh MP will today lead a Westminster Hall debate on government software procurement.

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04 Oct 2007 By Michael Holloway

ORG @ Conservatives conference 2007

Our e-Voting campaign tour reached its triumphant climax this week in Blackpool.

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28 Sep 2007 By Michael Holloway

ORG @ Labour Party conference 2007

The “should we trust electronic elections” bandwagon rolled onwards through Bournemouth and the Labour conference this week.

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28 Sep 2007 By Michael Holloway

Supporters Update – September 2007

Here’s this month’s update, including tales from ‘Conference’ and much more besides.

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28 Sep 2007 By Michael Holloway

Supporter meetup in Blackpool this Monday, 1 October

If you live local to Blackpool, please come along for a drink and meet the ORG team this Monday evening.

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25 Sep 2007 By Michael Holloway

Supporter meetup in Bournemouth this Thursday

If you live local to Bournemouth, please come along for a drink and meet the ORG staff this Thursday night.

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20 Sep 2007 By Michael Holloway

GikII 2 – law, laughs and geekery

Instigated at Edinburgh AHRC in 2006, this year’s GikII – a one day workshop on the intersections between law, technology and popular culture – took place yesterday at University College, London.

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18 Sep 2007 By Michael Holloway

Towards proper regulation of the DNA database

Today, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics launched their report on the regulation of the National DNA Database.

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17 Sep 2007 By Becky Hogge

ORG @ Liberal Democrat party conference 2007

Conference season got off to a fine start this weekend, as ORG set off around the country to raise awareness among grassroots party activists of the issues e-voting and e-counting pose for our democracy.

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17 Sep 2007 By Glyn Wintle

Microsoft loses appeal

This morning, the European Court of First Instance announced that it would uphold the European Commission’s decision that Microsoft has abused its dominant market position.

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11 Sep 2007 By Becky Hogge

Supporter meetup in Brighton this weekend

If you’re in or around Brighton this weekend, be sure to come and have a drink with ORG.

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06 Sep 2007 By Becky Hogge

Number 10 responds to iPlayer petition…

…And it’s pretty lacklustre.

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05 Sep 2007 By Becky Hogge

DNA-UK?

This morning, the news media are reporting a startling recommendation by one of the UK’s most senior judges: that the Police National DNA Database (NDNAD) should cover every citizen in the UK, and every person who visits the UK.

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03 Sep 2007 By Ian Brown

Digital rights go continental

ORG is just back from a weekend in Berlin planning digital rights campaigns with groups from across Europe.

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Digital Privacy

03 Sep 2007 By Becky Hogge

Gordon Brown at the NCVO: e-Voting off the agenda?

In a speech to the National Council of Voluntary Organisations this morning, Gordon Brown announced he would be convening a Speaker’s conference on voting reform: Today I am proposing to the Speaker that he calls a conference to consider, against the backdrop of a decline in turnout, a number of important issues, such as electoral registration, weekend voting, and the representation of women and ethnic minorities in the House of Commons.

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31 Aug 2007 By Michael Holloway

Supporters Update – August 2007

Here’s this month’s Supporters Update, including good news from the Electoral Commission and two new tools we need your help developing.

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Digital Privacy

29 Aug 2007 By Michael Holloway

Should we trust electronic elections?

Update: Supporter meetup venues and dates now confirmed – see you there!

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14 Aug 2007 By Becky Hogge

Defective by Design protest against BBC iPlayer

DRM protesters Defective by Design braved the drizzle today to make their feelings known about the BBC iPlayer.

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10 Aug 2007 By Becky Hogge

Lords report promotes security online

The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee have published their fifth report today, which makes a variety of recommendations to legislators, the police, businesses and citizens to improve personal security on the internet.

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Digital Privacy

02 Aug 2007 By Becky Hogge

ORG welcomes Electoral Commission recommendation to halt pilots

The Electoral Commission released its official evaluation of the 3 May electoral pilots in England this morning.

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31 Jul 2007 By Michael Holloway

Supporters Update – July 2007

Here’s this month’s supporters update for your enjoyment.

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25 Jul 2007 By Becky Hogge

BBC Trust: iPlayer must be cross platform

Update: Digital Lifestyles interviewed the OSC as they emerged from meeting the BBC Trust.

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24 Jul 2007 By Becky Hogge

UK Government says no to term extension

Back in May, we reported on the House of Commons Culture Committee’s misguided decision to recommend that the term of copyright in sound recordings be extended.

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24 Jul 2007 By Becky Hogge

After the flood…

As you may have noticed, the ORG website has been down over the last couple of days.

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18 Jul 2007 By Becky Hogge

Automatic Numberplate Recognition – function creep begins?

Yesterday, Home Office minister Jacqui Smith announced that she had signed a certificate to exempt Transport for London and the Metropolitan Police from certain provisions of the Data Protection Act.

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11 Jul 2007 By Glyn Wintle

Information Commissioner Horrified

The Information Commissioner’s Annual Report is launched today.

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09 Jul 2007 By Becky Hogge

ORG at Lugradio Live 2007

So I’ve just returned from Lugradio Live 2007, where there seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm for the work ORG has been doing over the last year.

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29 Jun 2007 By Michael Holloway

Supporters Update – June 2007

Much for you to pore over in the June 2007 Supporter Update If you’re not receiving these updates by email but wish to then please let me know, either by email or in the comments section below.

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Digital Privacy

29 Jun 2007 By Becky Hogge

Watch launch of ORG’s e-voting report

Last week, at the official launch of ORG’s report into e-voting and e-counting in the May 2007 elections, we invited MPs, civil servants and other stakeholders to come and listen to the findings of our observation mission.

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Digital Privacy

20 Jun 2007 By Jason Kitcat

ORG Election Report highlights problems with voting technology used

Today ORG releases its report into the May 2007 elections in Scotland and England.

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19 Jun 2007 By Becky Hogge

ORG launch report into 3 May e-elections tomorrow night

Since our 3 May mission to observe e-voting and e-counting in the English and Scottish elections, the ORG e-voting team have been hard at work.

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14 Jun 2007 By Glyn Wintle

Help us protect podcasting, again

Less than one year ago WIPO promised to re-draft its Broadcasting treaty.

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07 Jun 2007 By Becky Hogge

Independent review calls for better access to public sector information

This morning sees the release of The Power of Information, an independent review, commissioned by Hilary Armstrong MP at the Cabinet Office, into “state- and citizen-generated information”.

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01 Jun 2007 By Michael Holloway

Supporter Updates – April and May 2007

Links to our Supporter Updates from the last two months.

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22 May 2007 By Louisiana

ORG is looking for new Board members

Update: deadline for applications is Friday June 22nd It’s hard to believe, but the Open Rights Group is nearly two years old!

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21 May 2007 By Michael Holloway

MPs vote themselves above Freedom of Information

The House of Commons voted last Friday for legislation “designed to protect MPs, not their constituents” by exempting themselves from the Freedom of Information Act.

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16 May 2007 By Becky Hogge

House of Commons culture committee rules in favour of copyright term extension on sound recordings

The House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport has today released its Fifth Report – an investigation into New Media.

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14 May 2007 By Michael Holloway

Copyright extension: Seems our MPs haven’t been doing their homework

Update 2: Nick Pollard says Stephen Williams MP has responded to his letter by agreeing to take his name off the EDM.

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11 May 2007 By Michael Holloway

Are you on ORG’s mailing lists?

If you want to keep informed of our events, discuss digital rights issues, or actively help us out – there’s a list for you.

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Digital Privacy

08 May 2007 By Jason Kitcat

A big ORG thank you to our Election Observers

A huge thank you to our entire team of Election Observers who went way beyond the call of duty in their work monitoring last week’s elections.

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27 Apr 2007 By Becky Hogge

ORG ElectionWatch 2007 ready to go

Most of the thirty ORG election observers who have volunteered to devote a day to democracy on 3 May have now received their official accreditation from the Electoral Commission.

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26 Apr 2007 By Michael Holloway

Are you receiving ORG’s supporter updates?

We email out a Supporters Update on the last day of each month.

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20 Apr 2007 By Michael Holloway

Home Office’s ‘Data Retention’ consultation

The Home Office is holding a consultation into the initial transposition of the EC ‘Data Retention’ Directive on the retention of communications data’.

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18 Apr 2007 By Becky Hogge

Take action: European Parliament votes on IPRED2 next week

It’s time to get in touch with your MEP again.

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12 Apr 2007 By Becky Hogge

SO!(aP) a success – raffle winners announced

Last night’s inaugural Support ORG!

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Digital Privacy

04 Apr 2007 By Becky Hogge

ElectionWatch 2007 – ORG goes north of the border

Breaking news from the Scottish Electoral Commission – ORG can observe the election in Scotland!

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30 Mar 2007 By Becky Hogge

Less than two weeks ’til SO!(aP)

It’s less than two weeks until Support ORG!

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26 Mar 2007 By Glyn Wintle

Dilemmas of Privacy and Surveillance

The Royal Academy of Engineering has just released a report entitled Dilemmas of Privacy and Surveillance Challenges of Technological Change.

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Digital Privacy

23 Mar 2007 By Becky Hogge

Footage from February e-voting events now online

We’ve finally got video footage from two of our February e-voting events online.

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Digital Privacy

23 Mar 2007 By Becky Hogge

ORG Election Watch 2007: Registration Pack now online

Our guide to registering to become part of ORG’s volunteer Election Watch 2007 team is now online.

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21 Mar 2007 By Michael Holloway

ORG Raffle!

Update #3: Raffle is now closed!

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20 Mar 2007 By Michael Holloway

Patent Office want evidence to justify new copyright exceptions for artists

The Patent Office needs to hear from artists and creators.

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14 Mar 2007 By Suw Charman Anderson

links for 2007-03-14

Patent Office consults on… patents Consultation launched on “modernisation and consolidation” of UK patent rules.

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09 Mar 2007 By Suw Charman Anderson

links for 2007-03-09

House of Lords debate: DNA Database A short debate on the DNA Database in the Lords from yesterday.

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Digital Privacy

07 Mar 2007 By Becky Hogge

Election Watch 2007 – Devote your day to democracy!

Doing anything exciting on election day?

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06 Mar 2007 By Becky Hogge

System Failure: Private Eye report into NHS IT

The current issue of Private Eye has an eight-page special report into the NHS Programme for IT and Connecting for Health.

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28 Feb 2007 By Jason Kitcat

Committee on Standards of Public Life call for halt of May e-voting pilots

Yesterday, Sir Alistair Graham, chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, called for the 2007 electoral pilots in the UK to be halted, in a speech to the Association of Electoral Administrators conference.

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23 Feb 2007 By Becky Hogge

IPRED2 vote delayed

Good news from Europe!

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22 Feb 2007 By Michael Holloway

Renew for Freedom: March 26th deadline to escape database state

Act now, protect yourself later – renew for freedom!

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20 Feb 2007 By Becky Hogge

ORG at BarCampLondon2

Over the weekend approximately 150 technophiles gathered for BarCampLondon2, an über-geeky conference on all things related to the web and an ideal opportunity to spread the word about ORG.

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14 Feb 2007 By Suw Charman Anderson

links for 2007-02-14

ars technica – Study: P2P effect on legal music sales “not statistically distinguishable from zero” Glyn: “A new study in the Journal of Political Economy by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf has found that illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on the sale of music, contrary to the claims of the recording industry.

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13 Feb 2007 By Suw Charman Anderson

links for 2007-02-13

Boing Boing – Blu-Ray and HD-DVD DRM completely cracked Glyn:The “processing key” has been successfully extracted.

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12 Feb 2007 By Michael Holloway

Gowers critiqued

Thanks to Jordan Hatcher for reporting an AHRC Research Centre for Studies in IP open forum, which discussed The Gowers Review of Intellectual Property.

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11 Feb 2007 By Becky Hogge

Write to your MEP: JURI to vote on IPRED2 at the end of this month

IPRED2, the European Union’s second intellectual property enforcement directive, is going to the vote at the end of this month.

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Digital Privacy

07 Feb 2007 By Becky Hogge

South Warwickshire clinicians sharing smart cards

Last week, news emerged that the board of South Warwickshire General Hospitals NHS Trust is allowing clinicians in their Accident and Emergency department to share smart cards.

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07 Feb 2007 By Suw Charman Anderson

links for 2007-02-07

eGov monitor | Freedom of Information follow up Suw: “The Constitutional Affairs Committee will hold a one-off evidence session on Freedom of Information on Tuesday 6 March.

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07 Feb 2007 By Suw Charman Anderson

New Del.icio.us account

As you might have spotted, we have now set up a Del.

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06 Feb 2007 By Suw Charman Anderson

links for 2007-02-06

Inside IT: A picture paints a thousand invoices | Guardian Unlimited Technology Suw: “Moves by big picture agencies to enforce their copyright can have expensive implications for careless web developers” (tags: copyright UK photgraphy licensing) BioMed Central | Open Aaccess Colloquium: How Can We Achieve Quality and Quantity?

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02 Feb 2007 By Michael Holloway

Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ consultation – ‘Forensic use of bioinformation: ethical issues’

Our submission to this consultation is available here.

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Digital Privacy

29 Jan 2007 By Jason Kitcat

May 2007 e-Voting Pilots Announced

Finally, two months behind schedule, the Government has announced which local authorities will be running e-voting pilots.

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29 Jan 2007 By Glyn Wintle

Biometric data collection in schools

Greg Mulholland MP has tabled an Early Day Motion.

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22 Jan 2007 By Suw Charman Anderson

It’s that time of year again

Can you believe it’s been a year since we started accepting donations?

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Digital Privacy

16 Jan 2007 By Michael Holloway

Taking the lid off e-voting

While the Department for Constitutional Affairs have left us in the dark with no news at all about the e-voting pilots due for May 2007, The Open Rights Group and FIPR have been hard at work.

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15 Jan 2007 By Suw Charman Anderson

Welcome to Becky Hogge!

It doesn’t seem like a month since we appointed Becky Hogge to the position of Executive Director, but time has flown by and today Becky begins to take over the reins from me.

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14 Dec 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson

Becky Hogge to be new ORG Executive Director

I’m delighted to announce that Becky Hogge is going to be taking over from me as ORG’s new full-time Executive Director on 15 January 2007.

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14 Dec 2006 By Default Admin User

2006

Blog.

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12 Dec 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson

I see dead people

On the 7th December, the day after the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property was released, the PPL took out a full page ad in the Financial Times which included 4,500 names of musicians who have “banded together” to “demand” term extension on sound recordings.

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06 Dec 2006 By Glyn Wintle

Gowers Review

The Gowers Review, commissioned by the government to look at intellectual property law in the United Kingdom, published its final report today.

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28 Nov 2006 By Glyn Wintle

Open Source Motion Filed in House of Commons

John Pugh MP has tabled an Early Day Motion number 179 in the House of Commons entitled Software in Education.

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17 Nov 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson

Number 10 Petitions site launches

Back when I was in Brussels for EuroOSCON, the open source conference, Tom Steinberg asked me to think of a petition that I would like to see on a new petition site that mySociety was building for 10 Downing Street.

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