03/05/2016
Council of Europe, Strasbourg – The Council of Europe Publishing, upon the initiative of the Venice Commission, has just published a new issue in the collection “Point of law – point of view” entitled “Mass surveillance: who is watching the watchers?”
In the past decades in several countries, a massive “surveillance-industrial complex” has evolved, which risks escaping democratic control and accountability and threatens the free and open character of our societies.
Certain surveillance practices endanger fundamental human rights, including the rights to privacy, freedom of information and expression, and the rights to a fair trial and freedom of religion. Given the threat such surveillance techniques pose, how can states uphold these fundamental rights and ensure the protection of privacy and Internet safety in the digital age?
This book presents, in its first part, the report of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and, in its second part, the legal expertise on the issue of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission).