As new EU rules on data protection are set to take effect on 25 May, MEPs and national MPs meet to discuss their implementation with law enforcement authorities, intergovernmental organizations, enterprises and IT specialists in the EP in Brussels. Statements by Jan Philipp ALBRECHT (Greens/EFA, DE), Rapporteur and Chair of meeting, Andrea JELINEK, Head of the Austrian Data Protection Authority, Katarzyna SZYMEIELEWICWZ, Panoptykon Foundation and Vice-President of EDRi (European Digital Rights), Christine HENNION, Member of the French Parliament, and Andrea JELINEK, Head of the Austrian Data Protection Authority.

Brussels

debate

meeting

Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

protection of personal data (T)

ALBRECHT, Jan Philipp (Greens/EFA, DE)

Implementation of the Data Protection package: extracts from the debate with the interparliamentary committee

SOUNDBITE (English), Jan Philipp ALBRECHT (Greens/EFA, DE), Rapporteur and Chair of meeting, The new Data Protection Package brings this new legal framework into line with the Lisbon Treaty and modernises it to take account of IT advances, the explosion of new technologies, and globalisation and challenges posed by terrorism and crime. The new union Data Protection laws establishes a modern, strong and consistent legal framework across union policies which strengthen the protection of the individuals rights to data protection reflecting the nature of data protection as a fundamental right in the EU.

SOUNDBITE (German), Andrea JELINEK, Head of the Austrian Data Protection Authority, Let me start with what we've done in Austria. Last year we drew up a roadmap, or rather many different roadmaps. We tried the international one-stop mechanism, using hypothetical scenarios with real companies, there were also other data protection authorities involved, the Hungarian and Luxembourgish data protection authorities. What we noted is that there is a difference between as to whether you read legal provisions and you think you have understood them and write comments about them, and whether you actually implement them.

SOUNDBITE (English), Katarzyna SZYMEIELEWICWZ, Panoptykon Foundation and Vice-President of EDRi (European Digital Rights), I do think that fact that we will be as individuals informed about such aspects as sources of data, third parties with whom are data is shared, all categories of data that there are on us, or the fact of being profiled, that this is going to bring important, significant improvement, especially in the context of online services, and the advertising ecosystem that developed in a very non-transparent way, as we have seen with the Facebook case and many similar cases, there are serious also political concerns around how this industry evolves. So now citizens will have a good chance of discovering how their data is collected by all those third parties hidden in the shadows.

SOUNDBITE (French), Christine HENNION, Member of the French Parliament, The GDPR is am major step forward for Europe because of the fact that it places the responsibility on the shoulders of the digital companies, and this is very important in time when scandals such as Cambridge Analytica are creating doubts in the minds of our citizens. It has adopted a visual approach in Europe which distinguishes us from our American and Chinese competitors, and I think as long as it is applied in a reasonable way, the regulation will ensure that the Union will once again lead the world in the area of data protection, and i n the processing of personal data.

SOUNDBITE (English), Veiko SPOLITIS (EPP, latvia), Member of Latvian Parliament, What is the price tag for all of this, how much did you pay for that, to establish the whole system in a bureaucratic, it is a local civil service which has created, which is very understandable, but how much did you pay for that?

SOUNDBITE (German), Andrea JELINEK, Head of the Austrian Data Protection Authority, If we are looking at the cost of the establishment of the other structures, this is something that we did internally, we didn't have external consultants, we did this together with our own staff. I carried out a lot of education and training within the context of the changes internally, and this is the way in which we implemented the changes, it hasn't cost the Republic of Austria anything extra. Thank you.