Strasbourg, 12/03/2004 (Agence Europe) - What is the point of privacy rules if even the EU doesn't respect them? asked Italian Radical MEP Marco Cappato in Strasbourg on Tuesday during the vote on the report on the implementation of the 1995 data protection directive. He added that the EU and the US have agreed for computers for transatlantic flights to be accessible to US authorities without authorisation or rules and that while some accuse the US, this is in fact a European problem.
In this report, the European Parliament is calling for an amendment to the procedure set out in the 1995 directive in order to ensure the right to monitor the authorisation of data transfer to third countries. It feels that progress in the negotiations with the United States on keeping records of European passengers of transatlantic flights has still not progressed far enough and does not provide sufficient protection of privacy.
In the next plenary, the European Parliament will consider the report by Dutch Liberal Johanna Boogerd-Quaak on the European Commission's decision that the US authorities are providing sufficient protection to the personal data of European passengers flying across the Atlantic.