********* Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 19:11:27 +0200 From: Pawel Krawczyk <kravietzat_private> To: jyaat_private Cc: declanat_private Subject: Polish digital signature and freedom of information law DIGIAL SIGNATURE Polish Parliament has adopted digital signature law on July 4. The new act will be then passed to Senate and signed by the President and is expected to start working after 6 months vacation legis, in the first quarter of 2002. The act is quite compatible with EU law and similiar as for the regulations introduced. The act can be found at http://ks.sejm.gov.pl:8009/proc3/opisy/2594.htm Comments on http://ipsec.pl/podpis/ (both in Polish only, sorry) FOOIA At the same time the Parliament has adopted new act on citizens' access to the public information, similiar to US Freedom of Information Act. According to the act, all information, documents and official meetings performed by governmental institutions is available to anyone on request. The institutions are also obligated to publish the information on special Internet site to be available to the people. This regulations is however delayed in execution for 1-3 years to allow necessary changes in the offices and institutions. The latter is especially useful as a method to control corruption and stupid decisions made for someone's profit, which is a common practice now in Polish offices. For example, information on some public contracts or grants may be only available to a group of people, or even hidden. Recent scandal included the now freed Minister of Telecommunications, who was responsible for a placing a secret clause in the privatisation contract of Polish Telecom. The clause actually guaranteed the company monopoly on the market. And this was probably only the top of the iceberg. The act is available at http://orka.sejm.gov.pl/Rejestrd.nsf/wgdruku/3112 -- Paweł Krawczyk *** home: <http://ceti.pl/~kravietz/> security: <http://ipsec.pl/> *** fidonet: 2:486/23 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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