With its potential to save 2,500 lives each year, MEPs Sehnalová and Vălean debate the pros and cons of the eCall in-car emergency alert and address fears of data misuse.

Time to put eCall for cars in the fast lane?

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/11857996/n003-0308-en.srt

You're incapacitated, unable to get help.

What if emergency services could be  immediately alerted to your location?

Well, that's the premise of eCall,  to save lives. MEPs have signed off on it

and negotiations with Member States  are about to get underway.

But the system that would see all new cars  fitted with an alert function has detractors.

and Adina-Ioana Vălean from the European  People's Party stand up for eCall.

What's the state of play with eCall?  When could it be up and running?

The Parliament has repeatedly said that  it's time to deploy it as soon as possible.

But of course the Council, even for  the readiness of the infrastructure,

The date of the deployment  as it was foreseen

and adopted by the Parliament  is 1 October 2015.

so as rapporteur for eCall  in the Industry Committee for both reports

I was advocating for a bit more time,  let's say until the middle of 2016.

We don't necessarily need to rush,  because we need a very reliable system.

But is it a waste of money  for manufacturers

and a waste of time  for emergency services?

Once we talk about... The whole purpose  of this system is that it can save lives.

the 2,500 possibly saved lives  on European roads.

I think that's the interest  for car manufacturers as well.

eCall represents,  according to all studies,

1.7% of emergency calls per year  at European level.

For the rest you'll have  regular emergency calls by telephone.

And the technology for caller location  for smartphones is there.

It's not expensive.  The operators are ready to implement it.

Have data protection concerns  been addressed?

So information is sent  only in case of a car accident,

The legislator made it quite clear,  I would say that the Parliament's position,

we made very strong provisions  relating to all data protection matters.

eCall is a platform for emergency services.  It's not an open platform.

and this is a first step towards connected  vehicles, but we are not there yet,

because we need to define first  what an open platform is,

who is going to be the data controller,  the data processor.

The keyword will be liability. Who is  responsible for the people's data