EU data protection rules

EU justice and home affairs ministers are set to discuss draft EU legislation on data protection tomorrow (1). Commenting ahead of the Council debate, the European Parliament's draftsperson on the EU data protection regulation Jan Philipp Albrecht (Green MEP, Germany) said:

"Reports that various EU governments are seeking to water-down draft EU data protection rules are worrying. The draft data protection regulation proposed by the EU Commission represents an important step forward in addressing the demand of EU citizens to ensure their right to data protection and privacy is upheld, as called for by the European Parliament. We should seek to ensure the final legislation remains ambitious and EU governments' moves to lower this ambition are a cause for concern.

"Ministers are considering introducing a raft of loopholes to the draft rules at the behest of industry lobbying, which would undermine data protection for consumers.   Under a so-called 'risk based' approach, the data protection responsibilities of businesses would be reduced, whilst the rights of consumers would be cut. EU ministers must not take a decision to weaken data protection but rather to protect the fundamental rights of consumers and citizens."

(1) The Justice and Home Affairs Council debate on the EU data protection regulation tomorrow (Friday, 8 March) will be streamed live from 10.00 at:

http://video.consilium.europa.eu/?siteLanguage=en&go_button.x=10&go_button.y=9

Background information on the European data protection reform: http://www.janalbrecht.eu