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“impersonate public officials.” Activists and rightsgroups have criticised the amendments severely. 14The National Assembly had previously come underheavy criticism from activists and rights groupsfor an amendment of Section 114 of the CriminalCode which raised the jail term of six months or afine of GMD 500 (about USD 17), or both, up to fiveyears or a fine of GMD 50,000 (about USD 1,700) forpersons convicted of giving false information to apublic official. 15According to Article 19, the legal framework forICTs, including private communications, should notallow state authorities to assume sweeping powersover ICT operators and providers – in particulartheir equipment or content going through their networks– in undefined circumstances, including in anemergency. 16Conclusion and action stepsIt is evident that the government of The Gambiafears the opportunities for transformative democracypresented by ICTs and the internet in particular.The government is therefore struggling daily tomaintain a firm grip on ICTs and the internet. This isalso corroborated by the fact that the governmenthas blocked over 20 online news websites and14 Joof, M. S. (2013, July 8). The Gambia’s Internet Law: RSFvery disturbed, Amnesty International shocked. Front PageInternational. frontpageinternational.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/the-gambias-internet-law-rsf-very-disturbed-amnestyinternational-shocked15 JollofNews. (2013, May 8). Amnesty Int’l Denounces Gambia’sHarsh Criminal Law. JollofNews. www.jollofnews.com/.../3827-amnesty-intl-denounces-gambias-harsh-cri16 Ibid.pages. The popular instant messaging and callingservice Viber is also blocked. There are also indicationsthat proxies such as Anonymouse.org andthe Tor browser are being blocked in the country.The situation is therefore similar to what occurs incountries such as China, Ethiopia and Iran, as wellas some other parts of the Arab world.The government has denied any involvementin filtering and points to services providers whoare suspected of hiding behind vague governmentregulations. Citizens and human rights groups generallyblame the government for the status quo. It isobvious that unless there are concerted efforts, thesituation is not likely to change, at least not in thenear future.Advocacy efforts should be directed toward thede-legislation of the ICA Act, as well as the 2013amendments. This should be followed by strategicplanning to create a well-regulated sector. Specialefforts should be directed at reviewing and amendingSection 138 to bring it more closely in line withinternational standards for the protection of humanrights. In particular, it should be made clear that interceptioncan only be authorised by a judge for thepurposes of investigating serious crimes and subjectto the requirement of proportionality.HungaryData retention and the use of spy software in HungaryÉva Tormássytormassyeva@gmail.comIntroductionAfter a series of coordinated suicide attacks inMadrid in 2004 and in central London in 2005,the European Union reacted by passing the socalledData Retention Directive in 2006. Hungaryas a member state of the European Union wasobliged to introduce mandatory telecommunicationdata retention – that is, the retention of datagenerated or processed through the provision ofpublicly available electronic communications servicesor by public communications networks. Asa result of the Data Retention Directive, all telecommunicationservice providers in Hungary haveto collect and store so-called metadata, or datawhich shows who, when, where and with whomanyone tried to communicate or successfully communicatedvia email or phone. The Directive gavethe freedom for the member states to choose theperiod of time their telecommunication serviceproviders have to keep the data which, also accordingto the Directive, should be made availableto the competent national authorities in specificcases when a suspicion of serious crime arises(e.g. an act of terrorism). According to the Directive,data made available for the purpose of theinvestigation, detection and prosecution of crimesshould only be about the fact (who, where, whenand with whom email was exchanged or communicationtook place by mobile phone), not thecontent. However, when the directive was implemented,Hungary failed to make the distinctionbetween the fact and the content of the data.There is therefore a danger that the providerskept the content of the communication and theauthorities received more information about certaincitizens than they should have. The only goodnews for Hungarian citizens at the time of the implementationwas that the decision makers chosethe shortest possible period which was allowed,meaning the service providers have to keep themetadata for six months only in Hungary.New times, old habitsHungary was a member of the Soviet bloc before1989, a so-called communist country where the surveillanceof citizens by different authorities had along history, even if this history was not as bloodyas in certain other member states of the communistbloc. Most citizens had little personal experience ofsurveillance, and when the Berlin Wall collapsed in1989 and the doors to the secret archives opened,many people must have been surprised how muchthe state knew about them and their private lives.As a consequence of this, the newly adoptedlaws after the collapse of communism were verycareful when it came to citizens’ privacy and respectingthe right to a private life. Before Hungaryadopted the Data Retention Directive, the law ondata retention was tied to judicial authorisationwhich was given in cases of suspicion of seriouscrimes. The police or any other authority had to submita formal request for receiving the data from theservice providers; however, with judicial authorisationthey had the right to collect the data for threeyears.The judicial authorisation was a strong safeguardwhich disappeared with the implementationof the Data Retention Directive. The implementationtook place in 2008, under a socialist-liberalgovernment, and the competent ministry which wasresponsible for the implementation chose theshortest possible period for data retention becausethe minister was delegated by the liberal party. Butthat was the last good news for Hungarian citizens.The implementation forgot about the basicsafeguards in the law. The text was not clear when itcame to not storing the content of the data and didnot mention the necessity of judicial authorisation,court oversight or any external supervisory mechanism.The law also forgot to prescribe the obligationto inform the person concerned about the use ofhis/her data, and to inform the person who was undersurveillance, as well as the obligation to destroythe data after the end of legal proceedings. Lastly,there was nothing about who guards the guardians:who inspects or monitors the process of destroyingthe data when the retention time is over. Possiblythe worst thing of all was that the authorities weregranted direct access to the telecommunication132 / Global Information Society Watchhungary / 133