Brussels, 08/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European commissioner for justice and fundamental rights, Viviane Reding, and the German minister responsible for consumer protection, Ilse Aigner, together called on Monday 7 November for European rules to be enhanced on the protection of citizens' personal data. At the same time, this gives a nudge to foreign companies, such as Facebook or Google, to also bow to Community provisions.
During a bilateral meeting, the two women spoke of the work being prepared by Viviane Reding on review of the 1995 data protection directive, review that is due to be presented at the end of January 2012. The commissioner has never concealed the fact that she would like to give extra emphasis to several pillars in her revision proposal - right to erasure of data, right to rectify data in the event of data being used improperly, and the right for citizens to give their explicit agreement for data to be used. The commissioner also wants all foreign companies providing services for European consumers (including “cloud” services) to be subject to the same rules as EU companies.
The commissioner's appeal is backed by the German minister whose country is particularly vigilant when it comes to data protection regimes. In 2010, the court in Karlsruhe had thus invalidated transposition of the directive on telephony or internet data retention as part of counter-terrorism measures, opening up a dispute between Brussels and Berlin on the timeframe for implementing the text. The German Länder are also regularly in conflict with the social network Facebook, accused of being too intrusive. The Land of Schleswig-Holstein has thus banned the use of the “J'aime” tab on Facebook, likely to draw up an over-precise profile of the person using the web and being used to commercial ends. Another Land today has problems when it comes to the tool for face recognition.
According to an Eurobarometer survey carried out by the Commission, 70% of Europeans are today concerned by the way in which businesses use their data and 74% would like to give specific consent before data concerning them is collected and processed on the web. Furthermore, 75% of respondents would like to be able to delete personal data online whenever they wish, the report notes. (SP/transl.jl)