Yesterday the European Data Protection Supervisor published his recommendations on the EU's options for data protection reform - Opinion 3/2015 Europe's big opportunity (see here). Also, a new app has been launched - EU Data Protection - that allows everyone to compare on their smartphones the latest texts of the new law on data protection, as they've been proposed by various European legislators. These have been issued in the past 3 years (starting with the Commission's proposal of January 2012) and the intention is to finalize the text of the new law by the end of this year.
The EDPS argues, among other, for:
- possibility for users to have control also over pseudonymised data;
- data only being able to be used for original purposes of its collection;
- preventing "coercive tick boxes" - forcing internet users to agree to data collection and processing when there is no need for it;
- providing an option to give broad or narrow consent to data collection and processing (instead of "all or nothing" approach);
- establishing "an effective system of liability and compensation for damage caused by the unlawful data processing" with a possibility of consumer organisations, among others, claiming these damages for internet users;
- introducing the principles of data protection by design and by default with more transparency and simpler wording when rights of internet users are integrated in default settings;
- upon internet users' request data controllers could directly transfer data to other controllers;
