Brussels, 20/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - Just as the European Parliament's industry and research committee (ITRE) is expected to give its decision on the subject on Wednesday, the European organisation representing small and medium-sized enterprises, the UEAPME, has warned MEPs against making a data protection supervisor in SME compulsory, because it would prove very costly to these companies. In January 2012, Commissioner Viviane Reding's reform of the 1995 directive included an exemption for all SMEs whose staff numbers were under a certain ceiling. The Parliament, however, through their rapporteur on the subject, Jan Phillip Albrecht (Greens/EFA, Germany), advocated a different approach, which would include SMEs in this initiative whenever they used data for a certain number of people (more than 500 a year, to be more precise). Luc Hendrickx, the head of legal affairs at the UEAPME, explained that this meant including all SMEs because any SME worthy of the name “has an address book with more than 500 entries”. The UEAPME believes that MEPs should try and do more to protect the interests of SMEs that are involved in a symbolic struggle with the US giants in the sector and which, according to Hendrickx, would give birth to a “futile Facebook Act”. The latter also regrets that the current debate at the Parliament's civil freedoms committee has generally been going in the wrong direction. (SP/trans/fl)