It was drama galore at the European Parliament over reform of the privacy rules for e-communications ('e-privacy') when a majority of EPP members rejected the view of their shadow rapporteur, Michal Boni (Poland), and rejected compromise amendments negotiated with the other political parties. The vote at the civil liberties committee (LIBE) is, however, due to go ahead.
German MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht (Greens-EFA) said the EPP had acted irresponsibly and went as far as to call them ‘radical.’
The draft regulation aims to boost confidentiality of online communication while allowing service providers to make use of clients’ personal data as long as they’ve given prior consent (see EUROPE 11700). Albrecht said the compromise amendments match the EPP’s demands as they allow derogation to the prior consent rule for audience measurement and reasons of security. He said the others had changed their initial views to win the support of the EPP group and then the EPP went and voted against despite it being ‘far below privacy by default. All was rejected by the EPP. It’s unreasonable.’
New compromise proposals at the Council
At the Council, the Estonian Presidency published a document dated 16 October on Articles 12 to 20 of the regulation, which comes alongside the other draft compromises on Articles 1 to 5. The new document suggests forcing service suppliers to offer users the option of blocking marketing calls from certain prefixes if a member state were to decide to require the use of such codes or prefixes as foreseen in Article 16(3a). The document on Articles 12-20 points out that end users can withdraw their consent to receiving other direct and free-of-charge marketing communications (Article 16(6)). These proposals will be discussed at the Working Group on 25 October. The member states have until 6 November to send in their written comments. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)