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EUROPEAN REVIEW

ISSUE 19 - Page 8

EU agrees data protection while Euro-police take different line

AT THE END OF MAY the European Parliament voted for a compromise proposal for data protection legislation. Covering mobile telephones, e-mail and the internet as well as the availability of physical addresses, the new directive seeks to protect the public from unwanted communications and snooping. The EU claims that the new measure will be a world-wide first in providing for an opt-in for unsolicited e-mails and text messages. 'Citizens will have the right to determine whether their phone numbers for mobile or fixed lines, their e-mail addresses and physical addresses figure in public directories'
Other provisions concern information on the physical location of mobile users which the EU say must only be used with explicit consent by the user and 'invisible tracking devices', often known as 'cookies', on the Internet. When you log on to a web site these pieces of computer code travel from the site to your PC so that the web site can identify the user. While this can be useful for remembering passwords and showing you what you are interested in on the site, they do raise issues of personal privacy. UNICE, the European employers' federation lobbied against adopting an 'always tell the user first' approach, claiming that it would reduce the user-friendliness of web sites and the new law will require only 'adequate information about the purposes of such devices' to be provided with the user having 'the possibility to reject these tracking devices'. With the EU presidency, the Commission and the Parliament having agreed the measure, it should come into force at the end of next year.

Italian MEP Marco Cappato

Meanwhile The Observer newspaper reports that Europol, the EU police organisation is drawing up plans which run counter to the new directive. As well as e-mails, information about web sites and chat rooms visited, passwords and credit card details will be kept by telephone and internet firms for up to 5 years under the proposals. Mobile phone records could be used to track users' geographical locations, according to the report, an action that would appear to be directly opposed to the directive. However the new law allows Member States to 'lift the protection of data privacy in order to conduct criminal investigations or safeguard national or public security'. This was described as entailing 'massive restrictions on civil liberties' by Marco Cappato, the Italian MEP who reported back to the Parliament.

Two new enlargement sites come online

BOTH THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT and the Commission have recently added web pages on EU enlargement to their sites. The new Parliament page 'Reuniting Europe - The fifth enlargement' is enormously long and includes practically no external links. If you have the time to read it, you can inform yourself about the growth of the Union since its inception but the page must be counted very text-heavy. The Commission have made a better effort with far more pages and links from a clickable map to a page on each candidate country. These include a profile, key documents on the progress towards accession, relevant press releases and interesting external links. The overview pages have basic information on the process and details of public opinion, events and speeches on enlargement. Drop-down menus marked 'topics', 'news', 'library' and 'contacts' give access to many other pages including 'negotiations', 'speeches', 'key documents' and 'links'. All in all this is a much more comprehensive and user-friendly site than the Parliamentary one providing a wealth of easily navigable information on this increasingly important process which the web informs us will be 'time consuming and at times painful'.

The addresses of Web Sites mentioned on this page are as follows:

The European Commission enlargement home page:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/index.htm

The overview page:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/overview.htm

Their 'negotiations' page is at:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/negotiations/index.htm

Their 'speeches' page is at:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/speeches/index.htm

The 'key documents' page is at:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/docs/index.htm

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AT THE END OF MAY the European Parliament voted for a compromise proposal for data protection legislation. Covering mobile telephones, e-mail and the internet as well as the availability of physical addresses, the new directive seeks to protect the public from unwanted communications and snooping. The EU claims that the new measure will be a world-wide first in providing for an opt-in for unsolicited e-mails and text messages. 'Citizens will have the right to determine whether their phone numbers for mobile or fixed lines, their e-mail addresses and physical addresses figure in public directories' Other provisions concern information on the physical location of mobile users which the EU say must only be used with explicit consent by the user and 'invisible tracking devices', often known as 'cookies', on the Internet. When you log on to a web site these pieces of computer code travel from the site to your PC so that the web site can identify the user. While this can be useful for remembering passwords and showing you what you are interested in on the site, they do raise issues of personal privacy. UNICE, the European employers' federation lobbied against adopting an 'always tell the user first' approach, claiming that it would reduce the user-friendliness of web sites and the new law will require only 'adequate information about the purposes of such devices' to be provided with the user having 'the possibility to reject these tracking devices'. With the EU presidency, the Commission and the Parliament having agreed the measure, it should come into force at the end of next year.
		Italian MEP Marco Cappato
Meanwhile The Observer newspaper reports that Europol, the EU police organisation is drawing up plans which run counter to the new directive. As well as e-mails, information about web sites and chat rooms visited, passwords and credit card details will be kept by telephone and internet firms for up to 5 years under the proposals. Mobile phone records could be used to track users' geographical locations, according to the report, an action that would appear to be directly opposed to the directive. However the new law allows Member States to 'lift the protection of data privacy in order to conduct criminal investigations or safeguard national or public security'. This was described as entailing 'massive restrictions on civil liberties' by Marco Cappato, the Italian MEP who reported back to the Parliament.

The European Commission enlargement home page:	http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/index.htm
The overview page:	http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/overview.htm
Their 'negotiations' page is at:	http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/negotiations/index.htm
Their 'speeches' page is at:	http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/speeches/index.htm
The 'key documents' page is at:	http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/docs/index.htm