blogg för Julien Bencze

Looking at EU space assets

Julien Bencze — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 14:20:58 +0000

Språk Engelska

What do we associate space with? Star wars? It can be, we actually had a “cold” one, years ago. Star Trek ? Yeeeees, people that are always late (including me) have literally dreamt of being instantly (and successfully if possible!) teleported. More down to earth, we can also consider space as being a sector of top research and innovation. The hostile laws of physics to reach space and its great scientific and technological potential have motivated human intelligence and skills to create new materials and technologies, and understand better THE earth environment. Some European countries have acquired a relatively solid experience, France, Germany, Italy… The European Space Agency (ESA) has been performing an efficient cooperation for peaceful space activities between many more European countries. Now the EU wants to encourage and benefits from such activities.

It’s true that “downstream” space applications are important and growing: thanks to the satellites we can have internet connexion, broadcasting, navigation system and earth observation services. Of course, the root of this industry is still defence-oriented with old and active military satellites covering the orbits and whose reign reached its peak during the last decades of the Cold War. Also the main activities such as the launching and manufacturing of space crafts are entirely or partly under national, military assets. But the civil sector is surely taking more “room” in space, and the fact that the EU wants to better diffuse social and economic benefits of space activities is welcomed. After all, most of the money in space comes from the public.

For example, the investments of the EU into space research and new capacities such as Galileo and Copernicus, are key tools that will need our support. Galileo, Europe’s own navigation system, will gather 30 satellites, under civil control, and will enable the EU economy to be independent from the military-ruled, American “GPS”. Copernicus will cover a bunch of satellites to observe the earth.

The details of these two main programs and the global EU strategy would need to be taken care of, in particular as regards the data available. Space data will need to be easily accessible because of a high downstream potential, and also because it mostly comes from tax payers' money.

Avoiding the collision of spacecrafts with space debris or with other spacecrafts will also be needed in the mid-long term. The EU wants to set-up a service of “alert” sent to the satellite owner or operator in order for him to avoid the collision of its spacecraft in time. Such service should result in substantial time and money saving for the satellite operator while preserving the integrity of all the downstream applications depending on it.

Svenska

Pirate Vibes

Julien Bencze — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:42:30 +0000

Språk Engelska

I attach importance to personal impressions, they are subjective of course, but they are reality, non-said, subjective reality, and they are also probably feed by external, “wire-less” vibrations. You can feel in the air when an entity is alive also because of the waves it spreads all around, and sometimes you get its message. “Without words”.

The General Assembly of the German Pirate Party was a vibrant demonstration of collective vitality. Each attending person knew she/he was a living part (which means, considered as such by all the others) of a common political construction. What stroke me is the energy that came out from the well prepared and accepted confrontation of each one’s strong determination to do it right. And the good organisation of the event that has been already praised by my colleagues , where it was obvious everyone knew what he/she had to do and why, enabled to frame and project this energy towards a hopeful political future.

Around 300 proposals were debated and voted, on the party program for the next federal election in November, on the party fundamental program, its statutes, and position papers.

When the proposal was presented by a member on stage in front of the whole assembly, people who wanted to ask questions to the member registered and did so when reaching the mike after they queued along a “question” line. Those who wanted to speak for or against the proposal also took the floor to support or challenge the proposal vis-à-vis the member on stage and the audience along a “pro” or “contra” line. And then came the vote...

Most debates went easy-peasy, Some were electric; but the chairperson was always there to make sure misbehaviours were avoided, and they were. Basis democracy was indeed a reality during these three days.

To me this General Assembly strongly contrasted with the genereal assemblies of some other traditional, big parties, where members "support" or have to follow different internal party trends controlled and directed by a few, instead of having really a word to say. These supporters or followers didn't have the same level of determination in their eyes that the one I saw in Germany. Definitly not.

I just left Germany with the feeling of having my battery reloaded for the week…

What kind of Net Neutrality for France?

Julien Bencze — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:36:50 +0000

Språk Engelska

The French government should be now working on a possible legislative proposal on Net Neutrality. It received an opinion from the Conseil National du Numerique (CNN) which contains strange recommendations which waters down, if not could kill, Net Neutrality.

Wrong legal framework

The CNN recognises that freedom of speech is not enough protected with today’s threat of blocking, filtering…and therefore NN deserves the statute of fundamental right standing on the top of the law hierarchy, having a kind of constitutional value.

It’s great, we agree with that! That is why the CNN proposes the French government to put NN in…An old, basic law of 1986 that was passed to liberalise the TV sector and enable private broadcasters to emit.

It is very strange that the Net neutrality of the internet is part of this law that was set up for the TV sector, where communication goes in one way, via very few canals and is centralised, all of these not really applying to the internet concept! Doh n°1

The result of this strange integration would be that right after the beginning of article 1of the law stating that electronic communication to the public should be free, net neutrality would have to be applied the list of limitation to the free communication principle also embodied in the same article, and which includes the respect of human dignity, the right of property and childhood protection. Those limitations are of course excessively used by private actors to justify discrimination and fundamental rights violation on the internet.

This could dangerously facilitate the work of private companies to invoke its property right to avoid Net Neutrality and apply access restriction measures. Crap n°1

“Technical constraints” are also in the limitation list without having a precise definition. Here again, it would be very easy for a telecom operator to invoke technical constraint that he would have defined itself, to justify access hindering. Crap n°2

Weak or no definition

In the CNN opinion, Net Neutrality is not really defined, rather included in the sentence of Article 1 as such (free translation):

“The neutrality of the communication networks, infrastructures and electronic services of access and communication to the public, guarantees the access to information and to the means of expression, in non-discriminatory, equal and transparent conditions”.

So Net Neutrality is not defined as such, and non-discriminatory conditions rather remind the competition “wording”, which could imply that there would be a kind of scale of intensity to set up and to assess (by the judges!) in order to determine whether a behaviour is discriminatory or not. This could be in fact the open door for the categorisation of the internet including based on commercial ground. Crap n°3

No sanction

The CNN opinion does not refer to any need of sanctions, nor does it foresee the possibility for the French national telecommunication authority (ARCEP) to set-up preventive administrative sanctions for Net neutrality infringers.

Here again it is very strange that the CNN opinion regrets that the European Parliament did not refer to sanctions in its 2011 resolution on Net Neutrality , and in the same time does not propose the French government to put sanctions… Doh n°2

It would have been clearer to propose a new, positive law for NN and indicate that under this principle information traffic is not hindered otherwise clear sanctions would apply. Basta.

For those who read French you can refer to the well-argumented position of La Quadrature du Net

Towards more open formats for public information

Julien Bencze — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 18:10:49 +0000

Språk Engelska

Yesterday the committee for Industry, Research and Energy voted in favour of a proposal that should make the information held by public administratrion in the Member States more accessible for citizens, including for their re-use by interested individuals and businesses.

It has potential for improving the efficiency of public information in the digital world, increase transparency and create new business opportunities. A big source of worry for us appreared in the beginning of the negotiations between the members of the European Parliament that was dealing with the file. They seemed to agree that the public information could be accessible under any format (under the wording "technology neutral"), which would have made possible proprietary formats to proliferate, putting public information under a "business lock" for its access and re-use and thus jeopardising the whole point of the text.

Amelia managed to convince them to whitdraw all the references to technology neutral and replace them by "open format", which will be eventually and where possible chosen for containing public sector information.

Open standards will be used "in so far as possible". The total amount charged by public bodies for the re-use of documents would be limited to the marginal costs inccured for their reproduction, provision and dissemination, which should in principle ensure charges close to zero. However the conservative majority in the Industry committee managed through confusing and tricky wording to seriously limit in practice the implementation of the marginal costs.

The vote in plenary is foreseen at the beginning of next year.

Preserving a free and open internet!

Julien Bencze — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 13:51:53 +0000

Språk Engelska

The European Parliament has just adopted a resolution (version subject to technical modifications) to which Amelia and the Pirate Party played a central contribution, that underlines the importance for the EU and its Member States to preserve a free and open internet as a condition for democracy and social inclusion.

This resolution was needed in the context of the reforms of the International Telecommunication Regulations that will be discussed and voted by the UN International Telecommunications Union (the ITU, where all the 27 EU countries take part) at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in early December in Dubaï.

Some of the reform proposals constitute a serious threat to the open and free internet as we know it today, by transferring the regulatory powers (i.e. deciding how someone can be connected online and communicate with others) from global multi-stakeholder organisations such as the Internet Society or ICANN to the intergovernmental-exclusive ITU. These proposals would also provide nation states with explicit sovereign rights over the management of the digital information that enters or exits their territories, and encourage monopolies based on rent and information discrimination between citizens. A proposed reform from ETNO, the European voice of the main telecom operators, wants to implement interconnection charges to "enable" the good flow of information between their networks. These charges could lead to disastrous price increases for small telecom operators, the internet content providers and users, and dramatically harm competition and innovation on the internet. Only the big players would be able to pay these charges without affecting the quality of their service.

This resolution is without any doubt a political achievement.

Although the European Parliament resolution sends a significant signal to the outside world in the defence of a free and open internet by refusing these negative telecommunication reform proposals, it is also important that the EU citizens ask their Member States to do the same at the WCIT conference, since currently the EU itself is not a negotiating party at the ITU, but its individual Member States are.

Testing "words"...

Julien Bencze — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 18:08:37 +0000

Språk Svenska

Today the members of the Industry committee of the European Parliament voted their opinion on the completion of the digital singel market. For details see the draft here and the tabled amendments here. This opinion will be taken into account by the Internal Market committee members, that will produce the final report on the subject.

The final report of the European Parliament will not be binding, which means that the content should not be implemented within the EU society, it is rather a short text that "reminds" to the other EU institutions (the Commission, the Council) and the national Member States what the European Parliament think on the topic and would like to be considered in future EU law. So basically, its only words, but words that can be used to justify and negotiate the orientation of future binding EU law :-)!

Globally, we are slightly satisfied with the amendments that were voted today, the compromises between the different political groups, where Amelia negotiated in the name of the Greens on this file, reached noticeable wordings on the need to increase trust of EU citizens on the internet: "[the European Parliament ] Recognises the need to create ways of enhancing citizens‘ trust and confidence in the online environment and to guarantee protection of personal data and privacy, freedom of expression and information including the removal of geographical, technical and organisational barriers in redress mechanisms;"

We also got positive affirmation on the need for ambitious European internet infrastructures , including the deployment of fibre. These "words" are good to have with us in the coming negotiations of the future EU internet infrastructures. The need to harmonise exceptions and limitations in copyright was also stated, which is encouraging. Even if we don't see yet the light at the end of the tunnel, at least, we go forward.

We also reached a controversial compromise on net neutrality:

on the positive side, the industry committee wants the Parliament to ask the European Commission to consider measures to ensure net neutality, and Amelia made sure to remind that anticompetitive behaviour, blockage of innovation, restriction on freedom of expression, lack of consumer awareness and infringement of privacy are against net neutrality and hurts society as a whole.

on the less positive side :-) , first, there is a stated confusion between the principle of net neutrality and technical, telecom-like characteristics that could, maybe, be useful to implement this principle: "quality of service", "transparency of traffic management and ease of swithching ". Put these words alone, like the opinion does, without context explanation, and they become useless to ensure that, like the European body of telecom regulators wrote in 2010, "all electronic communication passing through a network is treated equally", [...] independent of content, application, service, device, sender address and receiver address".

Second, the European Parliament should have asked the European Commission for proposing regulatory measures to ensure net neutrality. Despite that the opinion refers to the risk of content blocking and to the concerns expressed by the same organisation more recently on operators that increasingly restrict access to their users on non technical ground , the text omits to recognise the need for voting binding texts to protect net neutrality. There is a difference between law that should be respected ("regulatory measures") and simple "measures" that can be taken in, for exemple, "guidelines" or "recommandation" or by me when I wake up in the morning. We really want the European Commisison to move... its...But despite harsh negotiations on this very particular point , a monolit majority that consisted of the conservative EPP, the liberals of ALDE and the soverenists of ECR emerged on the very last moment, to finally avoid the word "regulatory measures".

Let's see now how the Internal Market committee will consider the content of this opinion and how the final text of the European Parliament would look like ... "Battles and voting on words"... Welcome to the political work.

Ambition required: pushing for faster internet

Julien Bencze — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 14:07:33 +0000

Språk Svenska

This week we tabled our amendments to the proposal for a regulation on the guidelines for trans-European telecommunications networks

Basically, we push to encourage the generalisation of the fastest internet speed. I mentionned in my previous blog the European digital agenda targets: 30 Mbps all over the EU territory and 100Mbps in 50% of the EU territory. The 30 Mbps target has been conceived because they are EU regions with very poor or no connexions at all. And you can consider that 30 Mbps is better than nothing, which is true, of course! But looking back it seems an akward formulation. Because there is the risk that it would increase the digital divide by categorising or "institutionnalising" two kinds of regions by 2020 : the one with 30 Mbps or above and the ones with 100 Mbps or above. We should not forget that we talk about the targets to be reached by 2020, not today. We are annoyed by the risk that in so-called rural or remote areas, an automatic 30 Mbps will be targeted without considering the possibilties to reach 100 Mbps directly. We think it's more appropriate to target the maximum around or towards 100 Mbps everywhere with the condition that the costs are reasonable. Everyone should tend to the best, and the appplicants have to prove that their projects deserve the EU support because they propose and demonstrate that they plan to install the best capacities, the most secure infrastructures, at a "reasonnable price". It is not only possible but also financially interesting both for public and private actors to go from very low capacity and invest in FTTH for 100 Mbps all over a "white" area, like we saw in previously given exemples such as SIEEA. This "emulation" towards the best as I guideline to orientate the shaping of eligible projects is lacking in the European Commission proposal and this it what we propose to add. For exemple, we don't want the EU public money supporting the generalisation of wireless LTE technologies that can be financed by private money alone already, and that in terms of capacity, or network resilience, have clearly not the same advantages than the fibre. Also, wireless networks could suffer from the saturation of the radio spectrum licensing possibilities (more and more operators are asking for more, higher, and less available frequency bandth). If we invest public money it should be for the best...

We also propose to delete from the original text from the Commission the support to projects that aim at fighting child pornography online. We do not see the link between financing filtering or blocking technologies and boosting the internet connexion speeds all over the EU. The Commission says its a mattter of internet safety. But again, there is no link between the two. Internet safety is a matter of information security and network resilience, not website blocking!

After ACTA let's also have a look at the sources of the internet

Julien Bencze — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 07:36:48 +0000

Språk Svenska

The European Parliament is expected to vote in January next year on a key file for the future of our ICT economy: the shaping of its future infrastructure. Technically it is a "proposal for a regulation on the guidelines for trans-European telecommunications networks" . Translation: the text will impose a framework that will "orientate" the way EU public money will be spent for the next telecommunication infrastructures during 2013-2020. The target proposed by the European Commission is to reach, by 2020, 100% of EU households at a connexion speed of 30 Mbps or above, and 50 % of EU households at 100 Mbps or above. This target comes from the European Digital Agenda previously set by the European Commission.

The requirement of an efficient and universal internet network for our citizens on a wide and disparate EU territory in terms of covering, the substantial investments both from the EU, 9.2 Billion €, and private actors make this file of particular importance.

That is why we decided to push, together with other MEPs, for the European Parliament to organise at the end of last month a workshop on the file called ''Building a European energy infrastructure - selecting and implementing projects of common interest' to see and hear experts discussing the relevance of the dossier. To see the power points of the speakers, see here.

How did the discussion go? Well, there is a rather normal consensus between EU institutions and stakeholders to allocate the EU funding and financial support towards areas where private investments alone don't go because of lack of investment return, i.e. due to poorly dense population in what we call remote or "white" areas. The questions on how we allocate the EU public money and financial support and for what kind of network are more subject to debate.

The European Commission, some MEPs and market analysists such as analysys mason or wik consult invited at the workshop give main importance to the principle of 'technological neutrality' to reach the target, principle under which the applicants for EU support (businesses or public bodies) are able to choose whatever 'technology' to reach the target: wireless including satellites, or Fibre to the... FTTx, or copper or mix technologies.

We understand that for each new infrastructure every technology should be considered, but we are less sure about the central relevancy of such principle: if you are really ambitious and want to get the best possible infrastructure at a good price, and if you see that this is financially reasonable to have such ambition for your geographical area, maybe one technology would be more used than the others and you would have to make a kind of choice. Some of the defendant of technological neutrality among the experts at the workshop pointed out that optical fibre and especially fibre to the home FTTH is very or extremely costly and that for cost efficiency consideration it couldn't be too much generalised, and that it should be complemented by wireless or mix technologies.

Other experts like from Cisco, Netnod in Sweden or SIEEA in France counterbalanced somehow this approach by showing that if the costs of heavy FTTH infrastructures are reduced by the use of existing infrastructures, shared between operators or even publically managed, the general costs can be reduced thanks to a healthy and income-generating competition in the exploitation of these infrastructures, for the benefit of the end-user that can pay a reasonable connexion price for a top 100 Mbps or above connexion speed. A possible future congestion of the wireless market was also hinted at.

In the coming months we will need to be vigilant to orientate and properly allocate EU support for projects that REALLY bring excellence at still affordable price and that invest in infrastructure technologies where private investments are REALLY not keen to go alone. Too be continued after the summer in the European Parliament...

Cybercrime, the future topic for a one-size-fits-all enforcement instrument?

Julien Bencze — Tue, 29 May 2012 06:21:21 +0000

Språk Svenska

The Academy of European Law, ERA, hold on 24th and 25th May in Milan a conference called: Fighting cybercrime: between legislation and concrete action.

We attended the Friday session that enabled Google and Microsoft to show their good will to cooperate with the authorities to fight cybercrime, the latter showing initatives such as the use of photoDNA together with the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC), that allow ISPs to detect photos of child pornography and block them.

A passionate prosecutor from Belgium explained in details his frustration not to be able to get any information from yahoo in the US to identify two IP addresses in a solving of a case, which showed the way to a rather broad consensus to increase international cooperation at Sate level and with private entities and increase law enforcement of criminal sanctions against cybercrime.

The question of the definition of cybercrime appeared quickly as a "topic ". Whereas several speakers of the conference refered to the definition of the Convention of the Council of Europe from 2001 and the notion of "serious crimes", particular attention was given to child pornography in the different presentations and seemed to appear as the referent example to illustrate security measures of infrastructure and legal action. Spam activities and infringement of intellectual property rights are also in the scope of cybercrime.

This indicates how it is needed to be vigilent that those rather vague definitions of cybercrime, or to be more precise (!), definitions that do not clearly categorise enough, in the scope of future simplified and strengthened law enforcement, cyber actions of different nature in terms of harms to society, do not invade the sphere of freedom of speech in an unbalanced way...

The parallel with counterfeiting and IPRs infringement came to my mind, maybe also because three committees vote on ACTA this week...

Are we sure we need independent experts?

Julien Bencze — Sat, 12 May 2012 16:04:34 +0000

Språk Svenska

As my political awareness has been increasing I have realised how important it is to have independent experts. Whenever you go deep into a controversial, political issue, at one more or less quick moment, often the crucial question that comes to your mind is: do we have independent experts we can rely on to tell us what comes the closest to the truth and therefore can help us defining what action we should take to solve the problem?

The European Union, of course, agree with this view and have created EU independent bodies of experts in various areas that are serious and respected. One of them is the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS).

As it is stated in its constitutive legislation, voted by the EU in 2001: "With respect to the processing of personal data, the European Data Protection Supervisor shall be responsible for ensuring that the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, and in particular their right to privacy, are respected by the Community institutions and bodies".

Since 2010, twice the EDPS have expressed concerns about the effects of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on our fundamental rights. Its latest opinion dates back from the end of April.

If an expert body, recognised and supported by our EU institutions, assesses on two separate occasions that ACTA is a risk for our fundamental rights, I feel inclined to take this assessment into consideration, and I am sure many of my fellow EU-citizens would follow the same logic.

Therefore, I am astonished and even worried by the statement made by the European Commission representative at the European Parliament' committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on 26 April, to comment on the EDPS opinion on ACTA. It rejects the EDPS's "wrong" conclusions, on the ground that they are based on "erroneous assumptions" and "selective analysis" (watch the debate from 11:48:48 from the presentation of the EDPS opinion and the reply of the European Commission representative from 12:13:00).

How can the European Commission explain how it was able to communicate that the EDPS's concerns about the impact of the agreement on fundamental rights are "wrong", while at the same time having submitted the agreement to the European Court of Justice because it needs to know whether ACTA is indeed compliant with fundamental rights?

Also, the European Commission checks that the Member States have similar independent data protection authorities, whose expertise they should acknowledge. But here it seems the Commission does not consider in its priority to follow the independent authority they themselves have at their disposal... This weakens the position of the institutional framework the European Commission is proposing for the Member States and thereby undermines their own ambitions in data protection.

The EU should show the right way, be exemplary to its citizens, and if not at least show some logics in its way of being able to assess whether a future law (ACTA) is right or not. By undermining the EDPS expert's voice, the European Commission representative at that particular meeting did not do so. His statement, according to the European Commission, is not its official position. "You are damn' right!" and we will help making sure it will never be.