Brussels, 20/03/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the S&D at the EP was keen to point out its position regarding the vote the day before in the legal affairs committee (JURI) on the new rules on personal data protection. It also refuted the way things had been presented by rapporteur, Marielle Gallo (EPP, France). Although the French MEP believed that the vote was “unambiguous” in its support for her proposals and enhanced protection for Europeans, the S&D effectively opposed the draft recommendation, adopted by 14 votes to 6, with 1 abstention. “Although we welcome progress on data portability and interoperability” and the fact that the vote is not as bad as in the internal market (IMCO) and industry (ITRE) committees, “it is not, however, satisfactory… and with regard to legitimate interests, exemption criteria, notification deadlines (data violations) and profiling, the results are bad”, stated Françoise Castex (France, shadow rapporteur). In a press release, the S&D MEP regretted that it is “a major blow for EU citizens, sacrificed on the altar of US online giants such as Google and Facebook”. The European Digital Rights in Europe (EDRI) group said, however, that the JURI vote did include some important progress compared to previous votes at the ITRE and IMCO, which were very orientated to corporate needs. In a press release, EDRI indicated that MEPs had carried out a damage limitation exercise, particularly by re-establishing the portability principle (namely, the right of citizens to obtain copies of their data, in an interoperable format, so that they can move from one service to another more easily). According to EDRI, the opinion given would “allow companies to profile the personality and habits of individual, without their consent, if those companies felt that they had a 'legitimate interest' that was more important than the privacy of the individual. It would also permit the 'legitimate interest' exception to be used to process data for purposes that are incompatible with the original purpose of the data collection - destroying the control of the individual over their personal data, which is the very essence of the right to data protection”. (SP/transl.fl)