AFAIK, the European parliament is so far reasonable regarding the Internet and privacy.
However, the Commission (the executive branch, and especially the Trade Commisioner, Karel De Gucht) has been pushing hard for ACTA, going as far as lying, several times, to the Parliament. When the Parliament rejected ACTA, De Gucht said he would look for other means to bypass the decision.
I didn't know that. It plugs a hole in the targeted surveillance programs, at the expense of all prepaid users.
The target demographics for prepaid is mostly kids and teens, poor people, and people concerned about their privacy, split between sensitized geeks, unfaithful lovers and criminals.
For the first two demographics cheap monthly plans are now emerging (in France, Free offers two hours of talk and infinite SMS for 2€ per month and unlimited talk, SMS and 3GB of data for 20€ per month).
It sucks for the last three.
On a slightly related topic, in demonstrations, people caught without a cell phone during an ID check often end up arrested for "administrative reasons".
> On a slightly related topic, in demonstrations, people caught without a cell phone during an ID check often end up arrested for "administrative reasons".
So the likely reason for this is so that they can get an accounting of who was there, right? Where are you referring to?
Funny, I just realized that I never think of the UK when reading about Europe. In a surveillance context it certainly feels closer to the US. And then I watched this far to often a couple of years ago ... in a desperate wish to find some humanizing qualities ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdlT7v476qY
However, the Commission (the executive branch, and especially the Trade Commisioner, Karel De Gucht) has been pushing hard for ACTA, going as far as lying, several times, to the Parliament. When the Parliament rejected ACTA, De Gucht said he would look for other means to bypass the decision.