Brussels, 25/07/2013 (Agence Europe) - According to a report in the British newspaper, the Guardian, on Wednesday 24 July, the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle and justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, have sent their European counterparts a letter calling for their support to put in place a global agreement on data protection.
The two ministers are specifically seeking to amend a UN amendment dating back to 1966 on human rights and to include in it new digital communications. Last week in Vilnius, the German minister for home affairs, Hans-Peter Friedrich, backed a digital charter of fundamental rights that could be brought to bear in transatlantic trade negotiations (see EUROPE 10891). Shortly afterwards, German Chancellor Angela Merkel also said that she was in favour of a “global agreement” on data protection (see EUROPE 10893).
Spearheading this move, Germany has been subject to pressure from its people and human rights organisations following fresh revelations that the German secret services (BND) had cooperated with the US National Security Agency (NSA), which has already been taking the flak of international criticism over its PRISM programme. At the weekend, the Spiegel newspaper claimed that the BND and the German office for the protection of the constitution had use NSA surveillance software known as “XKeyscore”. These allegations have been denied by the interested parties, which would only confirm that they had been “testing” this software. On Monday, however, Chancellor Merkel announced that an enquiry wlould be opened.
According to the German data protection authorities, the Safe Harbour agreement, organising the transfer of European data to major US companies such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook, had already been breached by the US counterparts to this agreement. Last week in Vilnius, Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding also cast doubt over this agreement and announced it was to be evaluated with a view to possible revision (see EUROPE 10892).
At the beginning of the week, EU and US experts met in Brussels to examine the impact of a variety of the various US surveillance programmes on European data protection and current European rules dating back to 1995. Very few facts have emerged from these discussions, with another meeting expected in September. One source explained that the aim of these discussions, far from banning these surveillance programmes, is to provide an idea of the extent of the data on European citizens' data intercepted and examined by the US and to better adapt these programmes to human rights.
On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives, however, rejected, by very small majority, an amendment to limit funding of the National Security Agency. The text aimed to reduce the NSA's capacity for gathering information from telephone and electronic communications, activities that have also created heated debate in the US. (SP/transl.fl)