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September 09, 2005
Open Rights Group set up to defend online freedoms
A UK-based organisation to preserve digital rights and freedoms, the Open Rights Group (Org), has been established. The idea for the group came from the OpenTech 2005 conference in July and funding was secured via the Pledgebank website.
The group aims to highlight European and UK legislation that poses a threat to the rights of digital citizens. Although at an early stage of development, the group will serve as a hub for other cyber-rights groups campaigning on similar digital rights issues.
Org is based on the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) digital rights group in the US, which has campaigned against restrictions, proposed by the entertainment industry, on what people can do with digital media. It has also provided advice to bloggers at work, and has helped formulate e-voting policies.
Org aims to develop a community of volunteers to campaign on a range of digital rights issues, including ID card proposals, data protection, biometric passports, "fair use" rights over digital content, and vehicle tracking technologies.
There are already a number of digital rights groups in the UK and Europe, including the Campaign for Digital Rights and Foundation for Information Policy Research.
Suw Charman, co-founder of Org, said: "Our aim is to work alongside these people, helping them to connect with each other and providing them with whatever support we can".
The group’s first campaign will be against Home Secretary Charles Clarke's proposed draft EU framework on data retention for ISPs and telecommunications companies. The group believes the proposal is unnecessary and may contravene the European Convention on Human Rights.
Posted by at September 9, 2005 11:14 PM
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