Montaigne Centre Blog

Author Archive: guest

Death by ransomware

On 10 September 2020, ransomware infected 30 servers at University Hospital Düsseldorf, crashing systems and forcing the hospital to turn away emergency patients. As a result, German authorities stated, a woman in a life-threatening condition was sent to a hospital 20 miles away in Wuppertal and died from treatment delays. On 28 September, another alarming news article stated that ‘a…

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National security and the processing of personal data

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On 10 October 2018, ‘Convention 108’ of the Council of Europe regarding the ‘automatic processing of personal data’ (1985) was updated. Convention 108+ now explicitly incorporates the processing of personal data in a national security context. The Netherlands signed Convention 108+ on 10 October 2018 and is now in the ratification process. Surprisingly, Convention 108+ did not gain much…

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Should we be happy with a pesky hornet? On the querulant and his unintended, unexpected but desirable functions

Wibo van Rossum While researching the challenge procedures (publication, ‘Wraking bottom-up’ in 2012 and the current research into the ‘pilot externe wrakingskamer’) I became interested in the querulant. Querulants, in my opinion, challenge a judge more often than other citizens. They are also partly classified by this characteristic. Erhard Blankenburg has previously said that with…

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