Brussels, 19/03/2013 (Agence Europe) - While awaiting the verdict from the civil liberties committee on the substance of the opinion of its rapporteur Jan-Philipp Albrecht (Greens/EFA, Germany), the European Parliament's legal affairs committee also adopted its opinion on Tuesday on reform of European rules on personal data protection. This committee's decision follows that of the EMPL, IMCO and ITRE committees. Its rapporteur, Marielle Gallo (EPP, France), said in a press release that “today's decision is unambiguous; we are calling for a high level of protection for the private lives of citizens”.
The committee, she said, had adopted an extended definition of personal data, taking on board, for example, the jurisprudence of the Court which holds that IP addresses are personal data, the principle that explicit consent must be given by citizens for authorising the processing of their data, that there should be incentives for data encryption and that financial penalties, of up to €1 million or 2% of global turnover, should be imposed on for companies that do not respect the rules. In her report, the French MEP, however, appealed for greater room for manoeuvre for the competent authorities when it came to the question of imposing sanctions in this respect.
The press release states that, in her report, Gallo also indicated that “sending targeted advertising, known as 'profiling' is banned if it has a negative impact on users or if it is discriminatory, that is, if it is based on criteria of ethnic origin, religious belief or sexual orientation”.
The Irish Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers is hoping to obtain a political agreement on this regulation by the end of June. On 8 March last, ministers responsible for this issue continued to explore the text and agreed, inter alia, that only companies whose core activities were data-processing should be compelled to take on a data protection supervisor. The ITRE committee recently voted for a recommendation, which would exempt SMEs from some of the personal data protection requirements, in an effort to provide them with some administrative and financial relief. The civil liberties committee, however, like its rapporteur, is arguing for a stricter approach, which will only exempt certain SMEs, those processing the data of fewer than 500 people a year. (SP/transl.fl)