Brussels, 12/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 12 April, the European Parliament's civil liberties committee definitely adopted the package of legislation on protection of personal data, namely a general regulation and a directive on the processing of data in police investigations and judicial proceedings.
This vote by the committee puts an end to a long legislative process since the committee gave its first go-ahead in December 2015. It thus ratifies the compromise struck with the Council of Ministers (which adopted its definitive position on 8 April).
One final step remains - the vote by the EP plenary on Thursday 14 April.
The general regulation on data protection applies to private and public companies and was adopted by 50 to 3 with one abstention. The directive covers the police and judicial arms of the civil service and was adopted by 45 to 4 with one abstention.
At a press conference, EP rapporteurs Jan Philipp Albrecht (Greens/EFA, Germany) and Marju Lauristin (S&D, Estonia) - along with European Commissioner Vera Jourova, described the day as “historc”, and welcomed the progress made for European citizens and companies.
The new personal data protection rules should come into force in 2018 and provide Europeans with the right to have their data deleted and greater options for giving their consent to the processing of their information. Users will have to be better informed about the reasons for data processing and be able to more easily lodge appeals from their own country rather than simply in the country where the company in question has its headquarters.
Companies have more obligations and must all have a data controller, apart from SMEs for which personal data is not at the heart of their business.
The financial penalties for companies have been stepped up, but corporate life has been made easier because companies will now only have a single interlocutor, the national data protection authority of the country in which they are established.
The data protection package will be voted upon on Thursday at the same time as the PNR directive, as requested by left groups and liberals at the EP. The ALDE group has lodged a last minute amendments, however, calling for compulsory sharing among the EU28 of information gathered by the various national PNR systems - an amendment that could scupper the entire text and therefore the data protection vote, regretted the Conservative group in a press release. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)