Industry wants NSA access to European personal data

The EU is in the process of modernising data protection — in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

One key point is that European personal data, stored in Europe should be protected under European law. Companies should be able to deny requests for personal data from non-member countries. Politico.eu explains…

A small section, Article 43a, says companies should not always comply with requests from courts, tribunals and administrative authorities in non-EU countries for the personal data of Europeans. The only exceptions would be under law enforcement treaties or relevant agreements between those countries and the EU, or individual European countries.

This ought to be a no-brainer. But it has turned out to be highly controversial. One reason might be that US intelligence and law enforcement would like to have access to as much as possible. (And sadly they probably will, under other agreements and treaties. But it shouldn’t be the default mode.)

This is the position of the European Parliament. However, EU member states in the European Council are not at all happy with this article. Apparently, their allegiance does not lie with the citizens and European business.

And now the Industry Coalition for Data Protection (ICDP) composed of Big Data, IT- and telecoms multinationals have stepped in to kill article 43a.

The coalition sent a letter this week to Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová, parliamentary rapporteur Jan Philipp Albrecht MEP, and the Luxembourg presidency of the Council of the EU — the key representatives of the three institutions that are currently negotiating the regulation’s text.

The letter from ICDP said that adopting a “unilateral approach” would create deliberate conflicts of law and severely undermine “both the principles of reciprocity in diplomatic relations as well as the credibility of the EU data protection reform.”

Apparently, these companies are more concerned about their relations with US authorities than data protection.

Politico.eu: Industry issues plea over data reform »

/ HAX

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