Tag: EU

Much of the world’s digital economy relies on the free flow of data. So when a European court recently struck down an agreement known as “Safe Harbor,” which authorized data transfers between the United States and Europe, it sent shock waves across the Atlantic. Now companies and even governments are trying to figure out what to do.

Today, the European Parliament adopted the second report on the implementation of a “European Digital Habeas Corpus” examining the state of play of surveillance programmes. The non-binding report finds that there hasn’t been sufficient action taken to reform surveillance practices that affect individual rights. It also criticises the establishment of new surveillance measures in a large number of EU countries. Finally, the report calls for member states to drop charges against Edward Snowden and grant him whistleblower protection.

Earlier this year, the three major European institutions reached an agreement in the Telecoms Single Market trialogue, where lawmakers made several ambitious promises. Among them was the promise to enshrine Net Neutrality rules concretely into EU law. The aim: to guarantee Europeans the “most comprehensive open internet rules,” and to prevent fragmenting equitable cross-border internet services that are in a single market. However, as it stands, the legislation is not yet clear enough to realize these grand ambitions.

Tomorrow, the EU Court of Justice will determine whether the national Data Protection authority can conduct an independent assessment of a decision in the so-called Schrems case, which deals with Facebook’s transfer of user data between its subsidiary in Ireland and the parent company in the United States.

Earlier this month, negotiators from the United States and the European Union reached a preliminary deal on the so-called Umbrella Agreement. The Umbrella agreement is a transatlantic deal that sets standards for protecting personal data when it is transferred for law enforcement purposes. Notably, these rules do not apply to the transfer of commercial or employee data by companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, or Verizon. These companies must abide by a separate set of rules, the data sharing agreement called the Safe Harbour principles (see our recent press release on the Safe Harbour).

On Tuesday 22 September, Access will hold an apéro on the Future of the Internet where our Brussels team and civil society representatives will meet with Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and their staff.

The Industry Committee of the European Parliament formally endorsed the version of the Telecoms Single Market (TSM) Regulation that was agreed to on July 3rd.

Today the European Parliament’s trade committee is expected to decide whether to give the European Commision carte blanche to continue negotiations on a mechanism that would make it easier for foreign corporations to influence legislation in Europe.

Access welcomes the much-anticipated decision of European Ministers in charge of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to conclude their position on this crucial reform and allow for the start of trialogue.