The work on the rules on respect for private life and the protection of personal data in electronic communications is making good progress at the European Parliament. Now that the deadline for submitting amendments to the basic draft report has been set for Monday 10 July, the industry, research and energy committee is preparing its position.
It should be recalled that this text aims at strengthening the confidentiality of electronic communications, whilst allowing service providers to use the personal data of their customers if they have given their prior consent.
The draft report for the opinion by Kaja Kallas (ALDE, Estonia) also supports extending the scope of application to over-the-top operators. Similarly to Ms Lauristin, Ms Kallas is also refusing to provide the Commission with delegated powers and is unsurprisingly in favour of comprehensive encryption, which she points out could be made mandatory, if necessary.
Her draft opinion, however, is different to that of the Commission and the rapporteur of the civil liberties committee (LIBE), Ms Marju Lauristin (S&D, Estonia), on the question of cookies: she believes the text is generally over-targeting websites, particularly the browsers. Neither is she in favour of collecting the information generated by terminal equipment that enable connection to another mechanism or network equipment, “unless users are informed that they are within a tracking setting”.
In total, 323 amendments have been submitted to the draft opinion (199 pages in total).
They can be consulted at the following address: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=COMPARL&reference=PE-602.723&format=PDF&language=EN&secondRef=01 . (Original version in French Sophie Petitjean)