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On 23 July 1999 the British Government published the draft of the Electronic Communications Bill. The first proposal relating to this Bill gave rise to a substantial amount of criticism by some members of the Government. Because of this, the British Department of Trade and Industry has departed from the previous proposal on a number of relevant issues, ranging from the originally envisaged system of mandatory controls on the use of encryption, to the extremely strict regulation on the matter of unsolicited e-mails. The original proposal concerning the possibility for law-enforcement bodies to obtain...

The three Acts are the result of government bills brought before Parliament in February and June (see IRIS 1999-7: 14). By speeding up its proceedings, Parliament was able to pass the new legislation before the summer recess and before the National Assembly elections due to be held on 3 October 1999. All three Acts are based on European Community law: the Datenschutzgesetz (the Data Protection Act) transposes the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC); the Fernabsatz-Gesetz (the Distance Marketing Act) is designed to transpose the Distance Marketing Directive (97/7/EC), Directive 97/55/EC on incorporating...

By adopting a Rundfunkgebührengesetz (TV and Radio Licence Fee Act) and amending a number of existing regulations, the legislature has brought in a brand new system of regulating the collection of licence fees (and indirectly, therefore, a new system of programme fees, funding for the arts and various regional taxes). The new regulations will enter into force on 1 January 2000. Of fundamental importance, but also particularly controversial, is the requirement that the company which has recently assumed responsibility for collecting these fees, " Gebühreninkasso Service GmbH" (GIS), may demand...

In a recent high-profile decision, the Commercial Court in Paris applied the Database Protection Act of 1 July 1998 in favour of France Télécom, the national company which until 1 January 1998 held a monopoly in the market for telecom services in France. The case concerned the offer to the public by the company MA Éditions of a reverse directory on the Minitel server «3617 Annu» and on the Internet. The service had been made possible by the company downloading data from France Télécom's electronic directory, which can be accessed using the code «3611». The judges of the Commercial Court held that...

The French Government has confirmed its voluntary approach to the new information and communications technologies (see IRIS 1999-2: 3). The French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, announced on 26 August at the Communication Summer School in Hourtin that a bill on the information society would be submitted to the Parliament early next year. The Prime Minister said that certain essential decisions needed to be set out in legislation. These included, for example, freedom to use encryption in order to ensure the confidentiality of communications. It was also necessary to adapt French legislation on consumer...