The industry, research and energy committee is preparing to examine the draft opinion of Zdzisław Krasnodębski (ECR, Poland) on the free flow of non-personal data on 21 February. The text was recently published in French on Monday 12 February on the European Parliament website.
It should be recalled that the draft regulation presented in September 2017 aims to facilitate the free flow of non-personal data. It stipulates that data localisation for storage or processing purposes cannot be limited to the territory of a single member state except for public security reasons.
The Committee of Permanent Representatives to the EU (Coreper) decided on its negotiating position on 20 December. The internal market committee (IMCO) rapporteur at the European Parliament, Anna Maria Corazza Bildt (EPP, Sweden), intends to organise a workshop on 20 February and a vote at the plenary session in June.
The European Parliament's first step includes: examination of the single resolution for opinion by the industry committee (ITRE). In keeping with the Council's position, the draft text maintains a single reason for a possible derogation - public security -with regard to the ban on localisation requirements, while explaining that this concept incorporates both the internal and external security of a member state.
Contrary to the Council, the draft opinion highlights the fact that the public authorities have to show an example in the application of the principle of the free movement of data and that the public data is covered by the regulation's scope of application.
On mixed data (data that contains both personal and non-personal data) it stipulates that, "The general regulation on data protection (2016/679) should apply, unless personal data is included in the data as a whole for exclusively administrative purposes and is not sensitive personal data”.
Finally, with regard to data-sharing, Rapporteur Krasnodębski suggests that the future guidelines on self-regulation should focus on technical aspects and is applied after two years instead of the one year proposed by the European Commission. The draft opinion can be seen at the following link: http://bit.ly/2EAD1Ih. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)