The Parliament's two largest political groups, the European
People's Party and European Democrats (EPP-ED) and the Party of
European Socialists (PES), have reached agreement on compromise
amendments for the second reading of the Directive on the
protection of personal data in electronic communications.
Data retention
On data retention, the compromise says that Member States can
lift the protection of data privacy in order to conduct criminal
investigations or safeguard national or public security, when this
is a “necessary, appropriate and proportionate measure within a
democratic society”.
For the retention of data – which must be for a “limited period”
only – Member States may thus adopt legislative measures, which
must be in accordance with the general principles of Community
law.
The compromise also says that lawful interceptions of electronic
communications should also be in accordance with the European
Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and with the
rulings of the European Court of Human Rights.
Marco Cappato, a member of the Italian Radical Party, was the
Parliament’s draftsman for the legislation. His original draft did
not propose data retention for such wide purposes.
Cappato opposes the amendments and yesterday called for the
deletion of all references to data retention from the draft
Directive. He has praised an open letter which was recently
addressed to the Parliament, attacking the new proposals on data
retention. The letter was signed by 40 civil liberties
organisations and subsequently by more than 10,000 individuals who
added their names on-line.
The concern of Cappato and the civil liberties groups is that
the introduction of new retention laws in Member States “will
create new risks to personal privacy, political freedom, freedom of
speech, and public safety.” Cappato wants “case-by-case inquiries,”
not general data retention.
Spam
On the issue of spam, the compromise position rejects recent
proposals. If the EPP-ED and the PES win the Parliament vote,
according to the Parliament’s press office, prior consent would be
required before unsolicited e-mail can be sent, known as the opt-in
approach.
This is not the position that the UK Government has favoured. It
has long preferred an opt-out approach, to the annoyance of
consumer groups. The most recent indications from the EU were that
Member States would be left to decide whether spam should be opt-in
or opt-out. The EPP-ED and PES seem to be abandoning that
approach.
Cookies
On the question of cookies, small text files that are sent by a
web site to a user’s computer, the compromise position takes a
hard-line approach, first proposed by the European Council:
“users should receive clear and
comprehensive information on the purposes of cookies in advance,
enabling users to refuse them.”
Arguably, this presents a threat to the efficiency of e-commerce
in the EU, given that most commercial sites rely on sending cookies
to users.
Parliament's vote will take place tomorrow, 30th May.
