The European Commission has clarified its plan to set up a European Mobile Data Directory to combat Coronavirus (see EUROPE 12453/4). In a letter sent on 25 March to MEP Sophie in 't Veld (Renew Europe, the Netherlands), Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton has assured that all guarantees will be respected.
The European Commission's idea to involve telecom operators had raised a number of concerns, as reflected in the letter sent by the European Data Protection Supervisor. In this document dated 25 March, Wojciech Wiewiórowski notes that only completely anonymised data falls outside of European rules on confidentiality. He requested that the European Commission defined the 'data sets' it intends to obtain.
To MEP Sophie in 't Veld, who raised concerns over the rights of European citizens, Commissioner Breton promised that the aim was not to track the population. According to him, it is a question of “anticipating the evolution of the spread of the pandemic and, in particular, its peak in each country”, so that the needs for medical equipment can be better anticipated. He explained that the Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) is currently working on modelling this development and could feed mobile data into its work in order to improve accuracy. This is because these metadata allow the impact of containment measures put in place by Member States to be taken into account, the Commissioner continued.
“The European Commission will not compromise the privacy of citizens. It will act as the data controller and will ensure the appropriate use of the data according to specific purposes”, clarified Breton, adding that the data would be deleted as soon as the emergency is over. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)