Brussels, 26/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 27 November, the European Commission is expected to give a rap over the knuckles in a number of working documents to the US government and big internet companies over the way the United States complies with the bilateral agreements on privacy and personal data, particularly the Safe Harbour agreement with the big web companies and the SWIFT/TFTP agreement on bank transactions.
The Financial Times (FT) revealed on Tuesday 26 November that, in the documents due to be submitted to the member states shortly, the Commission severely criticises the United States' National Security Agency, the scale of whose surveillance was revealed in June 2013 by former CIA consultant Edward Snowden. The Commission points out that these surveillance programmes undermine the confidence and fundamental rights of people in Europe and discriminate against people in Europe because they cannot appeal in the US courts.
Different approaches are reported to be being taken by the department headed by Viviane Reding and that headed by Catherine Ashton. The FT says the latter wants to tone down the criticism of the United States. Reding is known for plain speaking. The Commission is not expected to go as far as calling for the suspension of the agreements, as suggested by the European Parliament last month.
For Safe Harbour, the Commission will make 13 recommendations to the US government to be introduced by the summer of 2014 to improve implementation of the agreement, although Reding's department explains that it still has the option of suspending the agreements. A reasonable first stage would be to improve the way the deal is implemented and launch in-depth consultations. Under Safe Harbour, US companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo, process the personal details of people in Europe and even send them to the US government, while pledging to respect EU data protection rules. The Commission says the fact that they have not properly applied the agreement has given them a competitive advantage and, ultimately, it must be ensured European data is not used for any other purpose that those laid down in the bilateral agreements.
Another document due to be published on Wednesday covers the Swift/TFTP agreement of 2010 between the EU and the US on counter-terror. As Commissioner Cecilia Malmström told MEPs in October, the Commission is not planning to suspend operation of the agreement or the PNR deal so laboriously negotiated with the European Parliament.
Meeting US senator Christopher Murphy in Brussels on Tuesday, who heads the Europe Senate subcommittee, along with members of the US House of Representatives, Gregory Meeks and Mario Diaz-Balart, Viviane Reding urged the US government to make all the required changes by the summer of 2014. In a press release, she made it clear that the European Commission expects the US administration to follow up on its political commitment to boost the rights of European citizens not residing in the United States by giving them the possibility of seeking redress in courts in the US over abuse of their personal data. (SP/transl.fl)