Brussels, 25/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - The committee on civil liberties of the European Parliament on Thursday approved the report by Alexander Alvaro (ALDE, Germany) on the proposed directive of the Commission on the holding of data, by 33 votes in favour, eight against and five abstentions. Despite doubts voiced by the Greens, which feel that "these measures are expensive and do not respect the right to privacy", a broad majority of MEPs took position in favour of the measures provided for by the proposed directive (EUROPE 9030). This legislation, the text of which has been submitted for co-decision, provides in particular to help national authorities to track persons suspected of committing terrorist acts, by allowing them access to lists of telephone calls, text messages sent or Internet connections made by a suspect in recent months, without allowing access to the content of the information communicated. "I am delighted that the committee on civil liberties has substantially supported my report", said the German rapporteur Alexander Alvaro (ALDE), who added that he was "satisfied that all key proposals had been adopted" from his report. The MEPs from the Socialist camp also favourably welcomed this vote, which, they feel, corresponds to "the fulfilment of a sensible and well-balanced compromise, stressing a need both to reinforce capacities to fight crime and for strict protection of data".
Notwithstanding, the fact that the British ambassador to the EU, John Grant, takes the view that this compromise results is completely different from the positions of the Council, points to intensive talks in the coming weeks if, as anticipated, an agreement is to be reached by the end of the year. On the objective of the directive, the MEPs take the view that the conservation of data must apply for research, the identification and legal pursuit of serious criminal infractions (terrorism and organised crime), but not for the prevention of all sorts of crimes. The Parliamentary committee took the view that the concept of prevention was too vague and may lead to abuse on the part of the national authorities. Amongst other things, it removed a paragraph of the Commission's proposal authorising the Member States to use the data they held for other connected objectives. As for the length of time for which data may be held, the MEPs propose that data (telephone and Internet) be held by the telecommunications operators for a minimum period of six months, which may be extended to 12, whereas the Council had proposed 12 and 24 months respectively. On this point, the telecommunications industry considers that this duration, particularly for Internet data, "is still too long", and that it will lead to the storage "of an excessive volume of data". For criminal sanctions, the committee also added a provision for "effective, proportionate and dissuasive" criminal sanctions for operators failing "deliberately or by negligence" in their obligations to store and protect information, but the Council opposes this. Only the legal authorities of the Member States will be authorised to access data held by the telephone operators and Internet suppliers. Access will be granted to third countries such as the United States via the conclusion of an international agreement. The MEPs stressed that the national authorities which are responsible for carrying out investigations into very serious infringements in the Member States and which require access to data, will have to obtain legal authorisation (European arrest warrant), whereas the Council wishes to grant access to competent authorities appointed by the Member States, and for all crimes to be included. The MEPs would like this access to be allowed on a case-by-case basis and with a specific objective: basically, the authorities would have to ask the telecommunications operator to consult the data pertaining to a specific suspect on each separate occasion, but would not be allowed access to the entire database, as the Council is calling for. The MEPs are in favour of the registration of localisation data for calls received, short messages and Internet protocols. It will be up to the Member States to decide whether to hold data for failed calls ("opt-in" clause), whereas the Council would like to oblige the telephone companies to keep the data pertaining to all calls, including those which were unsuccessful. However, given the costs for data holding, the MEPs agreed that the telephone companies should be fully reimbursed by the Member States for the costs incurred for the holding, storing and transmission of data, including investments and operating costs. The Council does not take this view, whereas the Commission has proposed that all additional costs be reimbursed. In principle, the Parliament is to scrutinise the Alvaro report further at its plenary session in Strasbourg in December.