The European Parliament's civil liberties committee on Wednesday 10 October approved by a comfortable majority (41 votes in favour, 10 against and 1 abstention) the draft resolution prepared by British MEP Claude Moraes (S&D) – the result of lengthy hearings organised by the parliamentary committee on the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal (see EUROPE 12054, 12049, 12034).
This resolution is "the European Parliament's response to the Facebook data breach", explained Moraes before the vote.
As a reminder, the text calls in particular for a full and independent audit of how Facebook protects the personal data of its users by the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) and the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS).
Compared to the original draft text (see EUROPE 12105), MEPs added a reference to the last data breach of nearly 50 million users who were victims of the breach that occurred on the social network at the end of September (see EUROPE 12107).
Among the suggested measures is Axel Voss' (EPP, Germany) proposal on "the application of offline conventional electoral guarantees", such as rules on transparency and spending thresholds, respect for periods of silence and equal treatment of candidates. Members also supported the prohibition of profiling for electoral purposes.
They also call on the European Commission to update EU competition rules and to examine the possible monopoly of social media platforms.
It should be noted that the text retains the request to EU bodies to check that their social media pages do not pose a risk to citizens' personal data and, if necessary, to consider closing their Facebook accounts.
Privacy Shield. MEPs also adopted Sophie in't Veld's (ALDE, Netherlands) amendment calling for the suspension of the transatlantic data protection shield, Privacy Shield, in accordance with the European Parliament's July resolution (see EUROPE 12056).
This reference has revived the strong opposition of the EPP Group. Before the vote, Axel Voss said that his group, although supporting the resolution, still opposes the request to suspend the Privacy Shield (see EUROPE 12055).
The draft resolution will be put to the vote at the next European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)