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Sweden seeks new tools to aid file sharing hunt

The Swedish government wants police and prosecutors to have more power to crack down on illegal file sharing by making it easier to force internet service providers to reveal the identity of individual computer users.

Sweden seeks new tools to aid file sharing hunt

“I would no longer need to make a preliminary assessment of the penalties associated with the crimes I’m investigating. If I have an IP-address, I can request information about who the customer is, regardless of how serious the crime is,” Henrik Rassmussen, a prosecutor who specializes in copyright infringement crimes, told the TT news agency.

“Previously, I’ve only been able to request information if I judged the crime to be over a certain level.”

Today, investigators can only request subscriber information if the suspected crime is punishable by jail or a suspended sentence.

But in a bid to make it easier for police to hunt down individuals who hide behind IP-addresses, the government has included language in a bill designed to fight internet bullying and “grooming” that in principal will allow police to summon to an interrogation anyone who has downloaded a movie illegally.

In the bill, the government call for police and prosecutors to be able to request information from internet service providers (ISPs) about the users tied to IP-addresses suspected of illegal file sharing even if the crime in question is only a minor offence, Sveriges Radio (SR) reports.

Internet bullying and other forms of online harassment are a growing problem in Sweden, as is grooming, whereby adults attempt to make contact with children for sexual purposes, according to the bill.

The bill explains that, when it comes to suspected violations of copyright laws, copyright holders have the ability to request information about suspected file sharers from a court in a civil law process.

But police and prosecutors would be able to avoid the extra step, according to the bill, which, if it were to become law, would allow investigators to go directly to ISPs to obtain information that could help them identify users suspected of downloading pirated material.

The bill does not, however, change police powers when it comes to carrying out raids at the homes of suspected file sharers and will still require that the suspected crime carry stiffer penalties.

“We’re still not going to be able to carry out search warrants for minor crimes,” said Rasmusson.

“But it will be easier for us to round up suspects and in cases where we will have other evidence than a raid. We can also conduct interrogations and it has happened that people who are summoned to an interrogation and faced with certain facts have admitted to the crime. That’s something me may used to a greater extent.”

According to Rasmusson, the new bill should be a cause for concern for Swede who download a pirated movie from time to time.

“Sure, they would be worried to the extent that there is a real possibility that they can be identified if the bill is passed,” he told TT.

“But our experience is that the organizations that track copyright infringement crimes aren’t interested in those who download one movie or a couple of songs.”

TT/The Local/dl

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INTERNET

EU greenlights €200M for Spain to bring super fast internet speeds to rural areas

Brussels has approved a plan which will bring high-speed broadband internet to the almost 1 in 10 people in Spain who live in underpopulated rural areas with poor connections, a way of also encouraging remote workers to move to dying villages. 

EU greenlights €200M for Spain to bring super fast internet speeds to rural areas
The medieval village of Banduxo in Asturias. Photo: Guillermo Alvarez/Pixabay

The European Commission has given Spain the green light to use €200 million of the funds allocated to the country through the Next Generation recovery plan to offer internet speeds of up to 300 Mbps (scalable to 1Gb per second) to rural areas with slow internet connections. 

According to Brussels, this measure will help guarantee download speeds of more than 100 Mbps for 100 percent of the Spanish population in 2025.

Around 8 percent of Spain’s population live in areas where speeds above 100Mbs are not available, mostly in the 6,800 countryside villages in Spain that have fewer than 5,000 inhabitants.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen plans to travel to Madrid on Wednesday June 16th to hand over to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez the approved reform plan for Spain. 

Back in April, Spain outlined its Recovery and Resilience plan aimed at revitalising and modernising the Spanish economy following the coronavirus crisis, with €72 billion in EU grants over the next two years.

This includes green investments in energy transition and housing, boosting science and technology education and digital projects such as the fast-speed internet project which aims to avoid depopulation in rural areas. 

It’s worth noting that these plans set out €4.3 billion for broadband internet and 5G mobile network projects in rural areas in Spain, so this initial investment should be the first of many.

Over the past 50 years, Spain’s countryside has lost 28 percent of its population as Spaniards left to find jobs in the big cities. 

The gap has been widening ever since, local services and connections with the developed cities have worsened, and there are thousands of villages which have either been completely abandoned or are at risk of dying out. 

READ MORE:

How Spaniards are helping to save the country’s 4,200 villages at risk of extinction

rural depopulation spain

The pandemic has seen a considerable number of city dwellers in Spain move or consider a move to the countryside to gain space, peace and quiet and enjoy a less stressful life, especially as the advent of remote working in Spain can allow for this. 

Addressing the issue of poor internet connections is one of the best incentives for digital workers to move to the countryside, bringing with them their families, more business and a new lease of life for Spain’s villages.

READ ALSO:

Nine things you should know before moving to rural Spain

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