Search results : 305

On 2 March 2010, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) made public its latest reports on Albania, Austria, Estonia and the United Kingdom, adopted in the fourth round of its monitoring of the laws, policies and practices to combat racism in the Member States of the Council of Europe (for commentary on earlier reports, see IRIS 2009-10: 0/109, IRIS 2009-8: 5, IRIS 2009-5: 4, IRIS 2008-4: 6, IRIS 2006-6: 4 and IRIS 2005-7: 3). A number of key recommendations dealing with the (audiovisual) media and/or the Internet can be distilled from relevant sections of these reports. The...

At the end of 2009, the Bundeskanzleramt (Federal Chancellery) published for debate an extensive draft amendment to Austrian broadcasting laws. The consultation procedure has since been completed, so the Federal Government can now consider the opinions that have been submitted as it draws up a Government bill. The organisation and remit of the Kommunikationsbehörde Austria (Austrian communications authority - KommAustria) are the subject of significant changes. In future, KommAustria will not be subject to directives and will take the form of a collegiate authority. Its role will be extended to...

The Austrian Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie (Federal Ministry for Traffic, Innovation and Technology) has published a bill transposing the Data Retention Directive 2006/24/EC into national law. The public had until 15 January 2010 to submit opinions on the bill as part of the consultation procedure. The bill amending the Telekommunikationsgesetz (Telecommunications Act), drafted on the ministry's behalf by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Human Rights - BIM) sticks very closely to the provisions of the Directive. The data...

In a previously unpublished decision taken in summer 2009, the Oberlandesgericht Wien (Vienna Appeal Court - OLG Wien) set out the conditions under which a person can be considered to have consented to television reporting about him/herself. An Austrian television company had produced a documentary on the work of the motorway police. The plaintiff was filmed by a camera crew employed by the broadcaster while a police officer carried out his official duties in a service station car park. The footage was broadcast several times in early 2009. It showed defects in the plaintiff's car and the conversation...

Since the beginning of 2009, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers (CM) has adopted five country-specific Recommendations concerning the application of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Serbia (first monitoring cycle); Armenia, Austria and Cyprus (second monitoring cycle) and Sweden (third monitoring cycle). The Charter contains a number of provisions of relevance for the (audiovisual) media, the most detailed of which are to be found in Article 11. Of the latest batch of Recommendations on the application of the Charter, the most specific references to the audiovisual...