On Tuesday, 2 April, MEPs of the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) closed their examination of the proposal for a regulation introducing European orders for the production and preservation of electronic evidence that can be directly addressed to a service provider in another Member State (see EUROPE 12003/18).
For the rapporteur, Birgit Sippel (S&D, Germany), the seven working documents (see EUROPE 12189/15, 12215/14) put forward will serve as a "very good basis” for the next European Parliament to later on come to a good result and "do what the COM should have done from the very beginning, which is better law making”.
On Tuesday, MEPs discussed the sixth document, co-authored by Romeo Franz (Greens/EFA, Germany), which highlights the gaps in terms of the rights of people whose data are requested to defend themselves.
The seventh working document, co-authored by Ignazio Corrao (EFDD, Italy), deals with the application of injunctions and, in particular, with the sanctions regime. The Commission’s text leaves it to the Member States to determine the applicable sanctions regime, but MEPs are concerned about the incentives this could create.
Service providers could be tempted to establish their legal representative - responsible for receiving and enforcing injunctions - in a Member State with particularly low sanctions and Member States could also be encouraged to set sanctions as low as possible in order to attract as many service providers as possible, they explain.
MEPs also believe that the deadlines for service providers to comply with injunctions are too tight and propose either to introduce a separate time limit regime for large companies and SMEs or to extend the deadlines in general.
“Looking at all the issues raised today [...] how could the Commission really put forward this proposal after three years of work? And how could they still defend it at every open event concerning this file despite all the criticism which have been put forward by the European Parliament, civil society organisations, fundamental rights and data protection experts, but also service providers themselves and not forget, some Member States", Ms Sippel said.
In response to the flows of criticism, the European Commission once again tried to defend itself and ensured that it had taken into account the needs of practitioners when drafting its text, while emphasising that “novel approaches always cause a lot of discussions”. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)