Brussels, 09/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 9 January, the European Parliament will get to the very heart of the reform of European rules on data protection when two specific reports are presented at the EP civil liberties committee. The first will be presented by Dimitrios Droutsas (S&D, Greece) and covers the directive on data processing in police co-operation affairs and the second is being put forward by Jan-Philipp Albrecht (Greens/EFA, Germany) and tackles the general regulation applicable to private businesses and public administrations. The two MEPs presented their work to the press on Wednesday 9 January. They intend to win committee support in the spring and open negotiations with the Council before the end of the Irish presidency. This objective may be difficult to achieve because the draft regulation has proved very dense - the Albrecht report is more than 200 pages long. And up until now, the directive has not received much interest from member states. The delay on this latter text may mean that the deadline will have to be extended with the two proposals forming part of the same package, despite the wishes of the Irish Presidency to make this issue one of its major priorities.
Presented in January 2012 by Commissioner Viviane Reding, the reform of the 1995 rules will also inter alia update and adapt the demands made of companies and the public authorities when they process the personal data of Europeans, to be more in line with the digital environment. One of the central planks of the regulation consists in obtaining the explicit consent of internet users when using their data and “the right to forget”, two provisions that particularly target practices used by the US giants Google and Facebook.
Albrecht has centred his report around 10 main points. Although the idea of explicit consent I, indeed, taken into account, the provision on the right to forget is a little more nuanced and balanced with the principle of the freedom of expression. Someone who has given their prior consent to the use of their data will no longer be able to request the subsequent and total eradication of these data. For all other issues, the German rapporteur has taken on board all the main principles set out by Reding, whilst providing greater clarity about them. He is, therefore, of the opinion that the number of delegated acts should be reduced to technical non-essential aspects alone. The appointment of an “officer” in charge of corporate data protection should therefore not depend on the number of employees but on the proportion and kind of data processed. The Commission had proposed an exemption for SMEs. With regard to penalties on companies infringing the rules, “proportionality” must be the watchword, explained the German MEP.
The specific directive on police and legal affairs has stepped up the safeguards in the event of transfers of data to third countries, with the Commission having previously to have decreed that any third-country recipient of European data must present an adequate level of data protection. This provision was contested by the United States, which argued several times that this would constitute an obstacle to the launch of large-scale operations, though it was felt by the Greek rapporteur not to go far enough. He proposed in his report that not only should these, strictly necessary, transfers of data be made only to third countries with a protection level deemed adequate, but also that protection guarantees should be set in place by a legally binding instrument. Droutsas also tightened up the definition of profiling, bringing it closer to that of the Council of Europe (any form of automated handling of data of a personal nature designed to assess certain aspects related, for example, how a person travels to work, his or her state of health or aspect of his or her behaviour). The rapporteur also provided a specific article for genetic data. The handling of these should therefore be possible only when a genetic link appears in the police investigation or legal proceedings and these are to be kept solely for the duration of these procedures. In a press release, Reding welcomed the two reports and the support they provide to the principles behind her reform. (SP/transl.fl)