Brussels, 14/03/2008 (Agence Europe) - The chairman of the civil liberties committee (LIBE) of the European Parliament, Gérard Deprez (ALDE, Belgium), said that despite the Commission's clearance on Tuesday 11 March of Google's takeover of DoubleClick (EUROPE 9620), the new entity created should comply with obligations under EU law on the protection of personal data. “Such obligations remain well and truly in force and fall within the competence of national data protection authorities which have, moreover, already begun work on this subject”, Mr Deprez stressed on Tuesday in an internal Assembly release. He went on to add that his committee now awaited the position that the working group of these national authorities (group Article 29) is expected to adopt on 3 April regarding data protection for internet research engines. At that point, the LIBE committee will examine whether the conclusions to be adopted by this working group on the basis of the directive in force are sufficient or whether intervention of a legislative kind is necessary, he said. If this is the case, the president considers that some of the data protection-related problems could be resolved within the framework of the review of the draft directive on data protection recently presented by the Commission and that the LIBE committee is to examine during coming months. The draft directive in question amends Directive 2002/58/EC concerning the processing of personal data and protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector. (B.C.)