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On 7 March 2012, Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) issued his Opinion on the proposed reform package adopted by the Commission on 25 January that includes a Regulation with general rules on data protection and a Directive with specific data protection rules for the law enforcement sector.
While welcoming the General Data Protection Regulation reform package, considering it a very big step ahead for the data protection right in Europe, the EPDS expresses his concern that the proposed regulation is "far from a comprehensive set of data protection rules on national and EU level in all areas of EU policy."
The shortcomings of the proposed regulation are first related to the law enforcement area, as it has left aside many instruments such as the data protection rules for the EU institutions and bodies as well as all the specific law enforcement instruments.
Peter Hustinx supports the proposed regulation as it eliminates the many inconsistencies deriving from the present national implementing laws, considering the new rules will strengthen individuals' rights, will make controllers more accountable for their personal data handling and will reinforce the powers and the role of the national supervisory authorities. However, in the EDPS' opinion, the Commission's separate proposals which will apply specifically to police and justice are "unacceptably weak" and should not involve such a big departure from the general rules with the new ground for exceptions to the purpose limitation principle and especially over the possibilities for restricting basic principles and rights.
"The proposed rules for data protection in the law enforcement area are unacceptably weak. In many instances there is no justification whatsoever for departing from the rules provided in the proposed Regulation. The law enforcement area requires some specific rules, but not a general lowering of the level of data protection," says Peter Hustinx in his Opinion.
Furthermore, he expressed concerns over the excessive powers granted to the Commission in the mechanism meant to provide consistency among supervisory authorities and the lack of a general duty for law enforcement authorities to demonstrate compliance with data protection requirements.
Another concern refers to the week conditions for transferring data to third countries due to the possible derogations.
Pan-European data protection policy still "far from comprehensive",
regulator warns (8.03.2012)
http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2012/march/pan-european-data-protec...
PRESS RELEASE - EDPS Opinion/07/12 - EDPS applauds strengthening of the
right to data protection in Europe, but still regrets the lack of
comprehensiveness (7.03.2012)
http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/...
Opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor on the data protection
reform package (7.03.2012)
http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/...
EU Data Protection Reform - EDPS
http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/edps/site/mySite/Reform_package
EDRi-gram: EDRi Initial Comments on the Proposal for a Data Protection
Regulation (01.02.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.2/edri-comments-on-data-retentio...