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It comes as no surprise that 2021 too will be dominated by the coronavirus pandemic and political activity will focus on the battle against the infectious disease. Nevertheless, there are many issues advancing in the background which need to be worked on. Many of these have been on our radar for quite a while now, and new ones will arise for sure. If the past year has taught us anything, it is reacting quickly and bracing ourselves for spontaneous legislative amendments on short notice.  

Austria has been working on an electronic identity – e-ID in short – for quite some time now. Recent discussions on this type of electronic identification have focused on the electronic driving license, which is to be introduced in spring 2021. The draft legislation proposed by the federal government provides for voluntary participation, so switching to an e-ID is not obligatory. The e-ID serves as technical basis and infrastructure for electronic identification.

On September 3rd the Austrian government released a legislative package to tackle online hate speech. Besides a comprehensive justice reform, the package also contains a bill that creates new obligations for online platforms to remove illegal user-generated content. This article offers a first analysis of the so called Kommunikationsplattformen-Gesetz (KoPl-G) and the many similarities it has to the German Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz (NetzDG).

This February we have celebrated our 10 year anniversary as an association. At the time, we enjoyed our little office party and we had no idea about what we would soon be faced with: the Corona crisis, for which we outlined implications and recommendations for digital rights right away. Not only did the Corona crisis increase our workload immensely, but it also complicated our work due to political circumstances.