2014 was marked as a year of online surveillance, and it seems that the same trend is very likely to continue in the new year, as most countries will move more or less in the same direction, passing laws that make it completely legal to spy on local Internet users.
The latest such incident is in France, where the country's government approved a new online surveillance law on Christmas Eve that allows the government to collect data on local users, including IP addresses, locations, duration and timing of connections, a list of incoming and outgoing numbers, and device information, whether they are laptops, tablets, or smartphones.
The law was originally proposed in 2013, but the government approved it on Christmas Eve, the French edition of Le Point reveals in its online edition.
As expected, the new law has already sparked protests across the country and many have criticized the government for its attempt to spy on users, but it seems that nothing can change at the moment, and the new law has come into effect, as originally planned, from January 1, 2015.
Similar cases in other European countries
Romania and Austria are two other European countries and EU members that are trying to legislate on internet surveillance, but in both countries the proposals are rejected sooner or later.
In Austria, a local court ruled that the regulation on online surveillance violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that residents of any European Union country must be guaranteed the right to respect for private and family life.
