Tuesday 28 January 2014

Taking data protection seriously

Following up on yesterday's post, today's news brings the idea of a Data Protection Compact for Europe. At the occasion of Data Protection Day 2014, EU Commissioner Viviane Reding called for a Compact based on the following eight principles:

"We need the Data Protection Reform in the statute book. I wish to see full speed on data protection in 2014."

2 "The reform should not distinguish between the private and the public sector. Citizens would simply not understand a split in times when the public sector collects, collates and sometimes even sells personal data. It is also a very difficult distinction to draw when a local authority can buy storage space on a private cloud."

3 "Laws setting out data protection rules or affecting privacy require public debate because they relate to civil liberties online."

4 "Data collection should be targeted and limited to what is proportionate to the objectives that have been set. Blanket surveillance of electronic communications data is not acceptable."

5 "Laws need to be clear and laws need to be kept up to date. It cannot be that States rely on outdated rules, drafted in a different technological age, to frame modern surveillance programmes."

6  "National security should be invoked sparingly. It should be the exception, rather than the rule."

7 "Without a role for judicial authorities, there can be no real oversight. Executive oversight is good. Parliamentary oversight is necessary. Judicial oversight is key."

"A message to our American friends. Data Protection rules should apply irrespective of the nationality of the person concerned. Applying different standards to nationals and non-nationals makes no sense in view of the open nature of the internet."

The full text of Reding's speech is available here.