Brussels, 06/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - European regulators responsible for data protection, who met in the Article 29 Group, have begun their analysis of the new Google privacy policy, announced on 25 January to take effect on 1 March. They have called on the American internet giant to suspend implementation of its new privacy policy rules until their probe is over. In a letter addressed to Larry Page, Google Director General, the lawmakers, headed by the French CNIL, explain that they wish to assess the effect that the simplification of rules envisaged by the company will have on European internet users, and to test the degree of protection afforded by such rules. Pending the outcome of the probe, the regulators have called on Google to suspend implementation of the new rules.
Commissioner Viviane Reding has welcomed this approach which will allow an analysis to be made of whether the new provisions are in line with European law, the 1995 directive on personal data. The commissioner in fact suggested that the directive be recast on the same day as Google made its announcement, on 25 January. Reding above all intends to ensure that internet giants like Google and Facebook give real guarantees to internet users on the processing of personal data, with precise information on why such data is used and a law on complete deletion of such data, the digital “right to be forgotten”. In the United States also, reflection has been launched on the practice of such companies and above all on the ways to delete data pertaining to American web users.
On 1 March, Google plans to merge some 60 separate privacy regulations into a single policy, and has been informing servers of this for some weeks. Google explains why the data (locality, IP addresses, for example) are collected and how it uses them. Google thus explains that it is likely to use the name provided in the Google profile for all its services requiring the use of a Google account. Such a possibility arouses concern among regulators. In their letter, they express concern at seeing Google share personal data of users in different platforms (gmail, YouTube, Google+, etc.) without allowing the internet user to give his/her prior approval. They say that, given the wide range of services proposed and the popularity of those services, any changes to Google's policy on the protection of privacy could affect many citizens of most, if not all, EU member states. (SP/transl.jl)