SUPPORT GROWS FOR EUROPEAN TELECOM DATA RULES
Less than week before controversial European Parliament (EP) vote on revisions in 1997 European Union (EU) telecom data protection directive, 2 large party blocs, Socialist and Conservative, have switched sides and will back data retention for law enforcement purposes, we're told. If EP adopts their position -- set out in amendment introduced May 23 by Ana Palacio, member of conservative EPP group and head of EP’s Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms & Rights -- it essentially would accord with “common position” adopted in Jan. by Council of Ministers, which civil libertarians say would require companies in member countries to retain data and make it available to law enforcement agencies. It also would reverse her committee’s original position, adopted last month, that personal data should be kept only for limited periods and purposes, such as billing.
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European Telecom Network Operators’ Assn. (ETNO) pressed EP Fri. to “guard against amendments by the Council of Ministers to the EU’s draft data protection directive that threaten to erode data and consumer privacy.” Existing EU law already permits member states to adopt legislation to protect public security and to investigate terrorist activity, ETNO said. However, it said, scope of Council’s data retention amendments goes beyond that and carry “unpredictable financial and data confidentiality implications.” Moreover, ETNO said, there’s no agreed definition of what “traffic data” or “data retention” really mean. It’s unclear what position, if any, ETNO has taken on Palacio amendments and organization didn’t respond to questions by our deadline.
Palacio’s amendments were criticized by Marco Cappato, Member of European Parliament (MEP) of Lista Bonino/Radical Party, who accused 2 groups of abandoning stance that EP had taken earlier without “getting any politically meaningful concession from the Council.” Most controversial of her amendments, Cappato said, would allow member states to impose rules on telecoms and Internet service providers (ISPs) for retention of data on communications, e-mails and Internet surfing. Parties are backing Council because they want to adopt directive as soon as possible to avoid “conciliation” process that must take place when EP and Council can’t agree on particular law, said Ottavio Marzocchi, Cappato’s asst.
Last-minute action (vote is scheduled for May 30) left civil liberties groups in U.S. and abroad scrambling to convince MEPs to hold their ground on EP position, said Marc Rotenberg, exec. dir. of Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Last week, EPIC -- along with 30-plus other U.S. and international groups, including Center for Democracy & Technology and American Civil Liberties Union -- sent open letter to MEPs asking them to vote against general data retention of communications by law enforcement agencies. If EP ends up endorsing the Council’s position, Rotenberg told us, it will reverse Europe’s earlier reluctance to accede to request by President Bush last Oct. that EU: (1) Consider data protection issues in light of law enforcement and antiterrorism campaigns. (2) Establish adequate capabilities for investigating terrorism in cases involving Internet. (3) Revise draft privacy directives calling for mandatory destruction of telecom data to permit them to be held for reasonable period.