Court backs 'right to be forgotten'

13 May 2014 Last updated at 13:40

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Rory Cellan-Jones: "One can be sure that Google's lawyers will be trying to find a way out of this"

A top EU court has ruled Google must amend some search results at the request of ordinary people in a test of the so-called "right to be forgotten".

The European Union Court of Justice said links to "irrelevant" and outdated data should be erased on request.

The case was brought by a Spanish man who complained that an auction notice of his repossessed home on Google's search results infringed his privacy.

Google said the ruling was "disappointing".

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Backers of the "right to be forgotten" are celebrating this ruling. EU Commissioner Viviane Reding has called it "a clear victory for the protection of personal data of Europeans".

But the judgement could have huge consequences for anyone who publishes material online about individuals, and they will urgently be asking their lawyers exactly what it means.

Can anyone who does not like an old story about them simply demand that it is wiped away? That does appear to be the case - the ruling says the rights of the individual are paramount when it comes to their control over their personal data, although there is a public interest defence when it comes to people in public life.

Google, having won at earlier stages of this legal battle, is both surprised and furious at this outcome. But it isn't clear that the search firm can do anything about it.

"We now need to take time to analyse the implications," a spokesperson added.

'Inadequate'

The search engine says it does not control data, it only offers links to information freely available on the internet.

It has previously said forcing it to remove data amounts to censorship.

The EU Justice Commissioner, Viviane Reding, welcomed the court's decision in a post on Facebook, saying it was a "clear victory for the protection of personal data of Europeans".

"The ruling confirms the need to bring today's data protection rules from the "digital stone age" into today's modern computing world," she said.

The European Commission proposed a law giving users the "right to be forgotten" in 2012.

It would require search engines to edit some searches to make them compliant with the European directive on the protection of personal data.

In its judgement on Tuesday, the court in Luxembourg said people had the right to request information be removed if it appeared to be "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant".

A right to be forgotten?

• In 2012, the European Commission published plans for a "right to be forgotten" law, allowing people to request that data about themselves to be deleted
• Online service providers would have to comply unless they had "legitimate" reason to do otherwise
• The plans are part of a wide-ranging overhaul of the commission's 1995 Data Protection Directive
• UK's Ministry of Justice is seeking British opt-out from any law - it claims that the law "raises unrealistic and unfair expectations"
• Some tech firms have expressed concern about the reach of the bill

BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones says the ruling has huge consequences for anyone who publishes material online about individuals.

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From Google's perspective, a nightmare potentially awaits, given the possibility that floods of requests are about to come its way"

End Quote

It appears to say that anyone who does not like an old story about them can ask for it to be wiped away, he adds.

The judgement stresses that the rights of the individual are paramount when it comes to their control over their personal data, although there is a public interest defence when it comes to people in public life.

'No legal oversight'

The ruling came after Mario Costeja Gonzalez complained that a search of his name in Google brought up newspaper articles from 16 years ago about a sale of property to recover money he owed.

He said the matter had been resolved and should no longer be linked to him.

Campaign group Index on Censorship condemned the decision, saying it "violates the fundamental principles of freedom of expression".

"It allows individuals to complain to search engines about information they do not like with no legal oversight," it said.

"This is akin to marching into a library and forcing it to pulp books."

Mr Gonzalez's case is one of scores of similar cases in Spain whose complainants want Google to delete their personal information from their search results.

The court said people should address any request for data to be removed to the operator of the search engine, which must then examine its merits.

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Legal complaint filed against GCHQ

13 May 2014 Last updated at 15:18

Privacy campaigners are seeking to stop GCHQ using "unlawful hacking" to help its surveillance efforts.

Privacy International said the UK intelligence service has infected millions of devices to spy on citizens and scoop up personal data.

A 30-page legal complaint has been filed with the Investigatory Powers Tribunal which monitors whether the UK's spying laws are being observed.

GCHQ said it had no comment to make on the legal complaint.

In a statement, the Privacy International pressure group said the documents released by Edward Snowden had detailed the many ways that GCHQ was spying on people, many of which violated the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees a right to privacy and to freedom of expression.

GCHQ and NSA programmes uncovered by Mr Snowden let the agencies listen via microphones, watch through webcams and scoop up detailed web browsing histories, said Privacy International.

Eric King, deputy director of Privacy International, said the surveillance was the modern equivalent of the government entering someone's house and reading their diary, correspondence and journals.

The freedom GCHQ and the NSA had to carry out surveillance was equivalent to "covert, complete, real-time physical and electronic surveillance", he said.

"Arbitrary powers such as these are the purview of dictatorships not democracies," he said. "Unrestrained, unregulated government spying of this kind is the antithesis of the rule of law and government must be held accountable for their actions."

The IPT has yet to respond to the filing of the complaint.

Prof Richard Aldrich, a lecturer at the University of Warwick who has written a history of GCHQ, said the agency was much more worried about such legal challenges than ever before as judges had become "much more unpredictable in this area" than they were a decade ago.

The legal challenge comes only days after the Home Affairs select committee said oversight of the intelligence agencies was "weak".

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China arrest over 'false stories'

13 May 2014 Last updated at 08:14

Chinese authorities say they have detained a man who posted "fabricated information" on a foreign news site.

State-run Xinhua news agency said Xiang Nanfu, 62, had published "false stories" on the Boxun website that "seriously harmed" China's image.

Boxun, a US-based Chinese news site, posts stories on protests and rights that would not appear in state media.

The move comes amid an internet crackdown and ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen killings.

'Deteriorating'

According to Xinhua, Mr Xiang had published "numerous false stories" on Boxun since 2009.

These included claims of organ-harvesting from live humans, false reports about land seizures, petitioners and police violence, it said.

Mr Xiang was arrested on 3 May and had confessed to his crimes, it said. He was also shown on state television admitting guilt - the latest in a series of TV confessions from media or internet-related detainees.

Boxun, which is blocked in China, runs stories - sometimes thinly sourced - on sensitive issues, many from "citizen journalists".

Many of its stories would not be reported in China's strictly-controlled state-run media.

In a statement on its website, Boxun said Mr Xiang had written about petitioners and rejected the claim that he had been paid for his reports.

It linked the arrest to the recent detention of several journalists and bloggers. "This is a clear sign that human rights in China are quickly deteriorating," it said.

Chinese authorities have been engaged in a widespread campaign against "internet rumours", which has included a clampdown on influential bloggers.

Under regulations announced last year, internet posts that are deemed to be false can land their authors with a three-year jail term if they are viewed by more than 5,000 people.

In recent weeks the authorities have also been targeting activists ahead of the 25th anniversary of the killing of pro-democracy protesters around Tiananmen Square.

Last week, prominent journalist Gao Yu was "criminally detained" over the alleged leak of a confidential document to a foreign website.

Her arrest and subsequent televised confession came days after a number of activists who had attended a seminar on the Tiananmen protests were rounded up, including human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang.

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Shutdown after Dogecoin hack attack

13 May 2014 Last updated at 13:18

A hack attack has temporarily shut down the Doge Vault site where many people stored their holdings of the Dogecoin crypto currency.

Doge Vault has issued a statement saying it shut down as soon as it saw attackers tampering with wallet funds.

It said it was currently identifying what impact the attack has had on users' funds.

Some Doge Vault users said large amounts of Dogecoins were moved off the site just before the shutdown.

Data destroyed

Dogecoin is a virtual currency like Bitcoin that is gaining popularity online even though each digital coin is worth only a fraction of a dollar or pound. Some people on sites such as Reddit and Twitter give away Dogecoins as a way to tip or compliment other users.

Like other crypto currencies Dogecoins are "mined" by getting a computer to carry out complicated mathematical operations.

Many people were storing the Dogecoins they mined or had otherwise accumulated in online wallets such as Doge Vault.

According to the statement, the attack on Doge Vault took place on 11 May and let hackers access and destroy data on the servers underpinning the service.

"As soon as the administrator of Doge Vault was alerted, the service was halted," said the statement. It said it would give out more information within the next two days.

It is not yet clear whether attackers have managed to steal any Dogecoins via the attack.

However, many fear coins have been lost because a lot of Doge Vault members reported seeing large numbers of Dogecoins being transferred to other wallets just prior to the shutdown.

Many of these transfers have been traced to one wallet that now holds 121 million Dogecoins which have a real world value of about $56,000 (£33,250).

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Robot arm gets official US approval

12 May 2014 Last updated at 11:32

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WATCH: A volunteer puts the device to the test - Footage courtesy of Darpa

A robot arm capable of picking up delicate objects has been approved for use by US medical authorities.

The Deka Arm has fingers that can move much like real ones making it easier for amputees to feed themselves, zip up clothes and unlock doors.

The arm has a much greater range of movement than existing devices many of which are based around metal hooks or designs more than 100 years old.

US Army veterans helped to test and refine the prosthetic limb.

The Arm was developed with $40m (£24m) of research cash provided by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). That money was part of a larger $100m Revolutionising Prosthetics research project run by Darpa that aimed to radically improve the range of robot limbs available to those who have lost upper limbs.

While prosthetics have improved in recent years, much of the development work has been done on legs rather than replacements for lost arms and hands. This is because of the formidable engineering challenges of reproducing the co-ordinated movement of human hands and fingers.

Currently, officially approved designs for replacement arms are often based around split metal hooks - a design first drawn up in 1912.

By contrast, the Deka Arm has been designed to resemble real limbs as much as possible.

"It was designed to produce near-natural upper extremity control to injured people who have suffered amputations," Darpa spokesman Justin Sanchez told Reuters.

The device uses electrodes which detect tiny muscle twitches wearers make as they learn to control the 10 different movements the prosthetic arm can carry out.

"This prosthetic limb system can pick up objects as delicate as a grape, as well being able to handle very rugged tools like a hand drill," said Mr Sanchez.

The US Federal Drug Administration, which oversees the prosthetic approval process, said the Deka Arm is designed for those who lost their arm at the shoulder, mid-upper arm or mid-lower arm.

The Deka Research firm behind the Arm was founded by renowned engineer Dean Kamen who invented the Segway scooter and many other devices.

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US Navy releases 'stealth' e-reader

12 May 2014 Last updated at 18:35

The US Navy is to provide custom e-readers, dubbed the Navy eReader Device (NeRD), to some of its sailors.

For security reasons, they will have no ports, wi-fi or roaming data capabilities as these features could be exploited by the enemy.

Five devices will be distributed among each US Navy active submarine fleet.

A broad range of books will be available from classics to best-sellers.

"At this time only submarines will receive devices," explained Nellie Moffitt, manager of the Navy General Library Program.

"[There will be] five per submarine, with a total of 355 for the submarine force. Eventually, we will send NeRDs to all vessels in the active fleet - it will take time as each collection will be tailored for specific audiences," Ms Moffitt told the BBC.

Features and restrictions

Traditional e-readers are not permitted on many Navy vessels as their GPS, wi-fi and roaming data features can give away their position to the enemy.

NeRD is said to overcome these issues thanks to its portability and lack of inputs and internet connectivity.

Unfortunately the absence of features means new books cannot be added to or removed from the device.

As a result, the e-readers come pre-loaded with 300 books, selected from the General Library Program's 108,000 titles.

Confirmed authors featured on the device include Jane Austen, Shakespeare and James Joyce.

However, there are also popular classics such as The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.

Storage restrictions, particularly in submarines, have meant keeping a well-stocked library in the Navy can sometimes prove challenging.

The NeRD is the brainchild of the US Navy General Library Program in partnership with Findaway World.

Sailors will not be charged for the device.

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BlackBerry launches low-cost phone

13 May 2014 Last updated at 07:03

BlackBerry has launched a new low-cost phone "exclusively for Indonesia", one of the few markets where it is still a key player.

The BlackBerry Z3, Jakarta Edition will go on sale from 15 May for 2,199,000 Indonesia rupiah ($191; £113).

It the first phone to be launched under new chief executive John Chen.

Once a dominant player in the sector, BlackBerry has struggled in recent years amid increased competition from rivals such as Apple and Samsung.

However, it has continued to enjoy success in Indonesia, making the country a key market for the firm.

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"From conception to delivery, the BlackBerry Z3, Jakarta Edition was designed specifically with our Indonesian customers in mind," Mr Chen said in a statement.

According to the firm, the phone - which was first announced in February - also comes customised with local apps and content.

The latest phone is also the first one to be launched after the firm agreed a five-year deal with Foxconn, the Taiwan-based maker of electronic products and components.

In February, Blackberry reported a net loss of $5.9bn (£3.5bn) for its latest financial year.

However, it recorded a smaller-than-expected loss of $423m in the three months to 1 March, compared with a loss of $4.4bn in the previous quarter.

Mr Chen, who took charge of the struggling firm late last year, has said the firm was on "a path to returning to growth and profitability".

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Inquiry call over police tweet visit

13 May 2014 Last updated at 10:58

The Green Party wants an investigation after a blogger was visited by police about his posts about UKIP policies.

Michael Abberton, a Green Party member, said two police officers visited him at home after receiving a complaint.

He was concerned that anyone would try to "silence dissent and debate in such a manner", he wrote on his blog.

Police said they had found no evidence of any offences having taken place in him reposting an ironic list of "10 great reasons to vote UKIP" on Twitter.

Mr Abberton said he had been trying to establish whether the policies on the list, circulating on Twitter, were genuine.

In the version he posted he included the website addresses of what appeared to him to be the sources of the claims.

For example, one claim - that UKIP wanted to raise income tax for the "poorest 88% of Britons" - was attributed to UKIP Birmingham spokesman Keith Rowe's website. Another, that the party would abandon "all action on climate change", was attributed to the UKIP Worcester website.

'Disturbed'

But next to other claims, for example that the party was planning to cancel "all planned house building" and scrap regulations aiming to make banking safer, he wrote in bold: "No source found."

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If the police were told that a criminal offence was occurring it would be interesting to know what that offence might be"

End Quote Julian Huppert Lib Dem MP for Cambridge

On his Axe of Reason blog, Mr Abberton said he had been "disturbed by a police officer peering through my lounge window" four days after posting the revised list.

At the door, the officer and a colleague had said "there was nothing to be worried about" but nonetheless asked to "come in for a chat", he reported.

He said they had advised him to delete some of posts he had published on Twitter which included the list of 10 policies.

He wrote: "They asked me to 'take it down' but I said I couldn't do that as it had already been retweeted and appropriated, copied, many times and I no longer had any control of it.

"I'd like to be absolutely clear - the police officers were extremely professional and polite and I couldn't fault their behaviour in any way.

"But it wasn't until after they left that I questioned why they had visited me in the first place."

'Further inquiries'

Cambridgeshire Police confirmed they had made the visit but denied telling Mr Abberton to delete any tweets.

A spokesman said: "We were called with a complaint about a message on social media at about 12:40 on Friday.

"Inquiries were made as to whether any offences had been committed under the Representation of the People Act but none were revealed and no further action was taken."

The Electoral Commission's summary of offences under the Representation of the People Act says:

• It is an illegal practice to make or publish a false statement of fact about the personal character or conduct of a candidate in order to affect the return of a candidate at an election;
• Election campaign publicity material must contain an imprint, not resemble a poll card and not contain a false statement as to the personal character or conduct of another candidate.

Green Party leader Natalie Bennett said: "This police action is both disturbing and surprising.

"That an apparently general complaint from a political party about not liking what was said about them could have led to a police visit that many would find intimidating is an extremely serious incident that demands immediate investigation. Free speech is a precious right that we must defend."

She added that Green Party member of the House of Lords Baroness Jones would write to Home Secretary Theresa May calling for the matter to be investigated.

It is not clear who made the complaint to the police. UKIP has yet to comment to the BBC. The New Statesman reports that the chairman of UKIP's Cambridge branch, Peter Burkinshaw, said he had not known anything about the incident.

"I wouldn't have thought it was criminal to tweet your opinion about something if it's not slanderous. I don't understand why the police would go round," the magazine quotes him as saying.

The MP for Cambridge, Lib Dem Julian Huppert, said the force had told him it was making "further inquiries" to try to establish what had happened.

"If the police were told that a criminal offence was occurring it would be interesting to know what that offence might be," he told the BBC.

"The police have a very important role in protecting the law. If these tweets were threatening or abusive there is a role for police officers.

"But fact-checking UKIP policy hardly strikes me as a massive violation of the electoral process."

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Row over Anonymous Twitter feed

13 May 2014 Last updated at 12:31

A row over missing cash has led to a dispute over control of a news feed run for Anonymous hacktivists.

In 2013, more than $54,000 (£32,000) was raised via the Indiegogo funding site to turn the YourAnonNews Twitter account into a rolling news service.

That venture is now in doubt as recruits try to work out what happened to the donated funds.

The row has led to some founding contributors to YourAnonNews being kicked off its controlling board.

Missing money

Since it was created the YourAnonNews Twitter account has been one of the main ways news and information about the Anonymous movement and its associated protests or "ops" have been shared. The account currently has more than 1.2 million followers.

Its popularity prompted the Indiegogo campaign and drew many others to get involved with the project.

However, soon after they joined, problems with the way the funding project was run became apparent, said a document shared online at the weekend.

To begin with, a lot of the merchandise people had bought to help support the Twitter feed had not been posted out to customers. Volunteers ran a separate small scale funding drive to raise $9,000 so the merchandise, including mugs, hats and hoodies, could be sent out to customers.

That work also exposed holes in the accounts of YourAnonNews, said the document, and revealed that only $14,000 of the cash donated via Indiegogo could be accounted for.

"By all accounts it is agreed about $30k is missing," said a statement posted on the YourAnonNews website.

The investigation into the missing money has led to Christopher Banks, one of the founding members of YourAnonNews being cut off from the main Twitter account. Based in Denver, Mr Banks has reportedly refused many times to explain what happened to the missing Indiegogo cash he was instrumental in raising and administering.

To make matters more complicated, four people who helped investigate what happened to the cash and were helping to run the YourAnonNews feed have fallen out over the best way to carry on.

This new row led one member of this group to cut off the other three people from the Twitter account. Now, he too has stepped back from running the news feed. Instead, it has been handed over to other activists based in Denver who are also associated with the Anonymous movement.

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Microsoft to sell Kinect-less Xbox

13 May 2014 Last updated at 16:49

Microsoft has announced plans to sell an Xbox One console that comes without the Kinect motion sensor.

The Kinect-less version of the Xbox One game console will be available worldwide from 9 June.

Unbundling the Kinect will cut the US price of the console to $399. In the UK it will be £350, the same price as Sony's PlayStation 4.

Microsoft said it made the decision to unbundle the Kinect to give gamers "more options".

It said it would start selling the Kinect separately in the autumn for those that want to add it to their Xbox One later.

Deep commitment

Introduced in 2010, the Kinect sensor watches the movement of a player and translates what they do into on-screen action. In addition, it lets players control what their console is doing by voice or gesture.

Yusuf Mehdi, head of Xbox business strategy, said Microsoft was taking the step in response to fan feedback.

"This decision wasn't made by ourselves," Mr Mehdi told the BBC. "We spent a lot of time speaking to our gaming partners and entertainment partners to balance the right feedback to meet their needs and our customers' needs."

"We remain deeply committed to the Kinect," said Mr Mehdi, adding that the sensing abilities of the peripheral were what helped to make the Xbox One console a "differentiated offering".

"I'm glad that we launched with Kinect," he said. "I'm glad that Kinect is a core part of the value proposition for Xbox One. I'm also pleased that we can continue to respond to customer feedback."

Tom Phillips, a staff writer at Eurogamer, said: "I think it's an admission of where Xbox One is in the market right now - behind PlayStation 4 in sales."

While Sony had been vocal about sales of the PS4, Microsoft had been very quiet about how the Xbox One and its flagship games were doing, he said.

"Its silence speaks volumes, and with Titanfall seemingly not attracting the desired level of Xbox One sales, this is the next solution," he said.

In addition to announcing the new Xbox One model, Microsoft said it was making it possible to watch Netflix, YouTube, Twitch and Hulu via the console without the need for an additional Xbox Live account.

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