552 Results
Quotes
Quotes based on international documents, law, and treaties- "Every person with disability has the right to barrier free access to the physical environment, transportation, information, including communications technologies and systems, and other facilities and services open or provided to the public. "
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.3 with regard to combating discrimination against and stigmatisation of persons with disabilities: (...) 7.3.2. encourage visibility and participation of persons with disabilities in electoral debates in the media, and the broadcasting of political programmes and debates in accessible formats."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.3 with regard to combating discrimination against and stigmatisation of persons with disabilities: (...) 7.3.3. provide civic education in accessible formats."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.4. with regard to accessibility of polling stations, information and procedures, including electoral campaigns: (...) 7.4.2. ensure the provision of information about electoral processes, voting procedures and political programmes in accessible formats, including in easy-to-read and easy-to-understand versions, with sign interpretation when required, subtitles for videos and Braille versions; 7.4.3. provide ballot papers in accessible formats and tactile voting devices for blind people in at least one polling station in every election district."
- "Key electoral information should be made available in multiple, accessible formats, which may include Braille, large print, audio, easy-to-understand versions and sign language. This includes information about how to participate in an election, how to lodge complaints and appeals, results and updates from the election administration."
- "Legislation should regulate in-kind contributions, such as subsidized advertising and printing, office and equipment rental. Good practice is followed if legislation defines how in-kind contributions are valued, for example based on market prices. Additionally, if an individual or legal entity forgives an outstanding debt for goods or services, this should be considered an in-kind contribution, subject to the limitations that apply to contributions and, where applicable, counting towards expenditure limits."
- "The legal framework should clarify the rules governing loans extended to political parties and candidates to finance their campaigns. "
- "It is good practice to permit only bank loans and credit-card debts, and not loans from other corporations or from individuals."
- "Third parties should be free to fundraise and express views on political issues as a means of free expression, and their activity should not be unconditionally prohibited. However, it is important that some form of regulation be extended to third parties that are involved in the campaign, to ensure transparency and accountability."
- "States should require parties and candidates to maintain records and report on all direct and in-kind contributions, as well as all campaign expenditures during a campaign period."
- "The deadline for submitting the final report to the oversight body should be precisely defined in the law. It is critical that the timeframe be sufficient to allow those with reporting obligations time to assemble the information, yet not too long, to allow the oversight body to undertake a thorough and expedient auditing and, where necessary, initiate proportionate and timely sanctions."
- "It is good practice for authorities to introduce a standard template and guidance for reporting, which enables timely analysis and meaningful comparison between different parties and candidates. (…) Further, reporting formats should include the itemization of all contributions and expenditures into standardized categories as defined by the regulations. Itemized reporting should include the date and amount of each transaction, as well as copies of proof of the transaction (for example, receipts, checks, bank transfers and loan agreements). "
- "Disclosure rules should clearly define who is subject to these requirements, what has to be disclosed and when. This information should be made public by the candidate or party and/or the oversight body, preferably on the Internet and in a user-friendly format."
- "Reports should be made publicly available without unnecessary delay, and be easy to understand. It is important that the law establish clear and timely deadlines for oversight bodies to publish reports and ensures that they are easily accessible to the public for an extended period of time. It is an increasingly good practice to publish reports on the Internet in a standardized and searchable format, as well as through newspapers with a high circulation. Electoral contestants may also publish their reports directly as an additional measure of transparency."
- "Every person with disability has the right to barrier free access to the physical environment, transportation, information, including communications technologies and systems, and other facilities and services open or provided to the public. "
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.3 with regard to combating discrimination against and stigmatisation of persons with disabilities: (...) 7.3.2. encourage visibility and participation of persons with disabilities in electoral debates in the media, and the broadcasting of political programmes and debates in accessible formats."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.3 with regard to combating discrimination against and stigmatisation of persons with disabilities: (...) 7.3.3. provide civic education in accessible formats."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.4. with regard to accessibility of polling stations, information and procedures, including electoral campaigns: (...) 7.4.2. ensure the provision of information about electoral processes, voting procedures and political programmes in accessible formats, including in easy-to-read and easy-to-understand versions, with sign interpretation when required, subtitles for videos and Braille versions; 7.4.3. provide ballot papers in accessible formats and tactile voting devices for blind people in at least one polling station in every election district."
- "Key electoral information should be made available in multiple, accessible formats, which may include Braille, large print, audio, easy-to-understand versions and sign language. This includes information about how to participate in an election, how to lodge complaints and appeals, results and updates from the election administration."
- "Open meetings are the logical corollary of providing access to recorded or documentary information. (…) Better practice is to require meetings of governing bodies to be open, albeit subject to closure where this is justified. To achieve this, it is important to define the scope of both governing bodies – normally public decisionmaking bodies such as elected bodies, judicial bodies, planning and zoning boards, educational boards and so on – and meetings – which refers to formal or official meetings convened to conduct public business."
- "Unless the right to lodge requests for information is anchored in clear procedural rules, it is unlikely to be effective. These rules need to be simple, so that ordinary people can easily understand them (and hence be able to make requests), but they also need to be reasonably comprehensive, so as not to provide reluctant officials with loopholes to avoid responding to requests."
- "Against this background, the responsibility of social media platforms within the framework of current political / campaign finance regimes to ensure transparency and accountability of ad placement, expenditure and attribution in order to better inform citizens of the context in which electoral choices are being made, gains critical importance."
- "Two essential elements of the internet are its instantaneity and its interactivity, which significantly affect the time frame established for the realisation of the electoral campaign. It would be interesting to reconsider the concept of soliciting votes, a process which is divided between periods of pre-campaign (or permanent campaign) and campaign. Similarly, the expediency of distinguishing between financing of campaigns and financing of political parties appears questionable."
- "It is also necessary to address the issue of the ban of political campaigns during the day before the election, whose nature clashes with that of the internet as an asynchronous medium, in which content is permanent and accessible to everyone at all times, without political parties needing to take any action whatsoever: political events, messages, videos, propaganda, etc. from the entire campaign are available to the citizen, including the day before the election."
- "During electoral campaigns, a competent impartial electoral management body (EMB) or judicial body should be empowered to require private companies to remove clearly defined third-party content from the internet, based on electoral laws and in line with international standards."
- "During electoral periods, the open internet and net neutrality need to be protected."
- "Citizens need to be protected in the processing of personal data particularly during the election period when large amounts of personal data are processed, including those available in the electoral registers. As regards the registers data privacy has to be balanced against the transparency required for electoral integrity."
- "The individual’s online behaviour cannot be monitored without the free, specific, informed and unambiguous consent of the data subject or other legitimate basis laid down by law according to Article 5(2) of Convention 108+. Furthermore, when the processing concerns sensitive categories of data such as information revealing political opinions, an explicit consent may also be required as complementary protection (Article 6 of Convention 108+)."
- "The data processing in both electoral and political advertising (in particular microtargeting advertising) context shall comply with data protection principles under Article 5 of Convention 108+. These personal data must be processed in compliance with purpose limitation and data minimisation principles. In particular, according to Recommendation CM/Rec(2012)4 of the Committee of Ministers on the protection of human rights with regard to social networking services, social networks should secure the informed consent of their users before their personal data is shared with other categories of people or companies or used in ways other than those necessary for the specified purposes for which they were originally collected."
- "Therefore, the Venice Commission has issued two recommendations which remain highly relevant and need to be implemented: - Revising rules and regulations on political advertising, in terms of access to the media (updating broadcasting quotas, limits and reporting categories, introducing new measures covering internet-based media, platforms and other services, addressing the implications of micro targeting) and in terms of spending (broadening of scope of communication channels covered by the relevant legislation, addressing the monitoring capacities of national authorities. "
- "Therefore, the Venice Commission has issued two recommendations which remain highly relevant and need to be implemented: - Ensuring accountability of internet intermediaries, in terms of transparency and access to data enhancing transparency of spending, specifically for political advertising. In particular, internet intermediaries should provide access to data on paid political advertising, so as to avoid facilitating illegal (foreign) involvement in elections, and to identify the categories of target audiences."
- "The Council of Europe has identified two types of cyberthreats to elections. First, threats to electoral democracy, namely “attacks against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of election computers and data”, compromising voter databases or registration systems; tampering with voting machines to manipulate results; interference with the function of systems on election day; and illegal access to computers to steal, modify, disseminate sensitive data. Second, threats to deliberative democracy, i.e. “information operations with violations of rules to ensure free, fair and clean elections” related to data protection, political finances, media coverage of electoral campaigns and broadcasting and political advertising."
- "Measures such as the adoption of corporate digital ethics codes and of self-regulatory mechanisms to solve conflicts between companies and users would also allow greater regulatory flexibility for the benefit of the interests of users and companies, while depressurising the relationship with the government and promoting co-responsibility of online behaviours."
- "The right to appeal to election bodies and courts should be established to enable a clear, understandable, singular and hierarchical complaint process that defines the roles of each level of election commission and each level of the courts. This will avoid the potential for a complainant to appeal to the body considered likely to offer the most favourable consideration of the complaint. "
- "All meetings should be announced in a timely manner, with all relevant documents equally conveyed to all members of the commission in sufficient time to be considered prior to the session."
- "Electronic technologies must function in a manner compatible with the principles enshrined in OSCE commitments and other international standards for democratic elections, and offer the same guarantees for transparency, accountability and public confidence as traditional voting methods."
- "Personal information controllers should provide clear and easily accessible statements about their practices and policies with respect to personal information that should include: a) the fact that personal information is being collected; b) the purposes for which personal information is collected; c) the types of persons or organizations to whom personal information might be disclosed; d) the identity and location of the personal information controller, including information on how to contact them about their practices and handling of personal information; e) the choices and means the personal information controller offers individuals for limiting the use and disclosure of, and for accessing and correcting, their personal information."
- "The collection of personal information should be limited to information that is relevant to the purposes of collection and any such information should be obtained by lawful and fair means, and where appropriate, with notice to, or consent of, the individual concerned."
- "Personal information collected should be used only to fulfill the purposes of collection and other compatible or related purposes except: a) with the consent of the individual whose personal information is collected; b) when necessary to provide a service or product requested by the individual; or, c) by the authority of law and other legal instruments, proclamations and pronouncements of legal effect."
- "Where appropriate, individuals should be provided with clear, prominent, easily understandable, accessible and affordable mechanisms to exercise choice in relation to the collection, use and disclosure of their personal information. "
- "Personal information controllers should protect personal information that they hold with appropriate safeguards against risks, such as loss or unauthorized access to personal information, or unauthorized destruction, use, modification or disclosure of information or other misuses. Such safeguards should be proportional to the likelihood and severity of the harm threatened, the sensitivity of the information and the context in which it is held, and should be subject to periodic review and reassessment."
- "Individuals should be able to: a) obtain from the personal information controller confirmation of whether or not the personal information controller holds personal information about them; b) have communicated to them, after having provided sufficient proof of their identity, personal information about them; i. within a reasonable time; ii. at a charge, if any, that is not excessive; iii. in a reasonable manner; iv. in a form that is generally understandable; and, c) challenge the accuracy of personal information relating to them and, if possible and as appropriate, have the information rectified, completed, amended or deleted. "
- "Personal data shall be: (a) processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency’)."
- "Personal data shall be: (...) (b) collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes; further processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes shall, in accordance with Article 89(1), not be considered to be incompatible with the initial purposes (‘purpose limitation’)."
- "Personal data shall be: (...) (c) adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed (‘data minimisation’)."
- "Personal data shall be: (...) (d) accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date; every reasonable step must be taken to ensure that personal data that are inaccurate, having regard to the purposes for which they are processed, are erased or rectified without delay (‘accuracy’)."
- "Personal data shall be: (...) (e) kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed; personal data may be stored for longer periods insofar as the personal data will be processed solely for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes in accordance with Article 89(1) subject to implementation of the appropriate technical and organisational measures required by this Regulation in order to safeguard the rights and freedoms of the data subject (‘storage limitation’)."
- "Personal data shall be: (...) (f) processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security of the personal data, including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage, using appropriate technical or organisational measures (‘integrity and confidentiality’)."
- "Processing shall be lawful only if and to the extent that at least one of the following applies: (a) the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes."
- "Each Member State shall provide for one or more independent public authorities to be responsible for monitoring the application of this Regulation, in order to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons in relation to processing and to facilitate the free flow of personal data within the Union (‘supervisory authority’)."