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On 7 January 2021, the Commission decided to register a European Citizens’ Initiative entitled: “Civil society initiative for a ban on biometric mass surveillance practices.” The organisers call on the European Commission to strictly regulate the use of biometric technologies in order to …

On 10 February 2021, the Council agreed on a negotiating mandate for the planned Regulation “concerning the respect for private life and the protection of personal data in electronic communications” (e-Privacy Regulation). Although the Commission presented its proposal (COM(2017) 10 final) in January …

Following the CJEU’s landmark judgment from 6 October 2020 in La Quadrature du Net and Others (→ eucrim 2/2020, 3/2020, 184-186), the Portuguese Council Presidency wishes to make progress in drafting new EU legislation to harmonise the public authorities’ access to traffic and location …

In its judgment of 2 March 2021 on the Estonian rules on data retention, the CJEU confirmed red lines for access to traffic and location data for law enforcement purposes. In addition, the case questioned which competent authority can grant access to such data.

On 2 February 2021, the CJEU, sitting in for the Grand Chamber, rendered an important judgment on the right to remain silent in administrative proceedings if the person’s answers might also establish his/her punitive liability. The case is referred to as C-481/19 (DB v …

On 23 February 2021, the Commission published a roadmap for a proposal to include hate speech and hate crime into the list of EU crimes for which harmonisation of substantive criminal law would be possible in accordance with Art. 83(1) TFEU. The Commission plans to …

On 10 February, the German Federal Government passed a draft law on the criminal liability of operating criminal trading platforms on the internet and providing corresponding server infrastructures. To this end a new provisions is to be included into the German Criminal Code: Anyone who …

Two German courts confirmed warrants for pre-trial detention against persons whose criminal activities had been revealed as a follow-up of the infiltration of the encrypted communication network EncroChat. On 10 March 2021, Eurojust and Europol reported another successful strike against an encrypted communication network that was predominantly used by organised crime groups.

On 22 January 2021, the European Central Bank (ECB) reported that in 2020, around 460,000 counterfeit euro banknotes had been withdrawn from circulation - fewer than ever before. Compared to the total number of banknotes in circulation of over 25 billion, the number of counterfeits …

On 10 March 2021, the European Parliament (EP) adopted, by a large majority, amendments to the Commission’s draft to amend Directive 201116/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation (DAC7). MEPs call for improvements to the tracking and taxation of online sales. According to …