International Data Protection Day was launched by the Council of Europe in 2006 in order to raise awareness amongst citizens about their rights and responsibilities regarding data protection.

For this year’s 8th edition of Data Protection Day, the Data Protection Unit is co-organising a side event: “After Snowden: using law and technology to counter snooping” to coincide on 28 January. The “Handbook on European data protection law” prepared in cooperation with the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and the European Court of Human Rights will also be launched on this day on the Council of Europe’s websites.

“Google and the World Brain” Polar Star Films’ latest documentary directly addresses issues of data mining and unauthorized data collection by large internet companies. Key thinkers and authors such as Jaron Lanier and Evgeny Morozov expose the dilemma we all face when going online. “Whether large internet companies are making our lives easier or gaining power over us presents a false binary” says Evgeny Morozov when considering the Google Glass Project in the film.

You can buy a DVD of “Google and the World Brain” from Polar Star Films shop or watch it online in Spain at Filmin, 400Films, Filmotech or Yomvi, and find out more about this story and the dangers of access to information on the Internet. As the director Ben Lewis said about free stuff on the net: “When something is free, it usually means that somebody is not getting paid for their work or somebody is selling your user data.” Should we be worried?