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Deutsch: Europäische Kommission löst Expertengruppe für Datenschutz auf Macedonian: Европската комисија расформира група ...

The European Commission has decided to dismantle a group of experts that needed to review the European Data Protection Directive.

The group was formed after a tendering process and included: Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel for Google, David Hoffman, director of security policy and global privacy officer for Intel; Henriette Tielemans a privacy lawyer from a US law firm, Christopher Kuner, a privacy lawyer with another US law firm; and Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of the Dutch data protection authority.

Alex Türk, the French Data Protection Authority President and the Chairman of Article 29 Working Party, has complained about the biased structure of the group explaining to a French Senate committee that the group was composed "four-fifths of personalities representing American interests." The committee submitting a resolution stating it was "unacceptable" that four members of the group "are either from American companies or law firms whose principal establishment is in the U.S."

The group had just one meeting at the end of the last year and even though they were gathered for a one-year mandate the Commissioner Barrot, who is also a French, decided to disband the group and to broaden the consultation on the review of the 1995 data protection directive.

In fact Türk asked Barrot to look into the matter, and the latter acknowledged that "the situation was abnormal". Türk explained that part of the problem was that there were major conceptual differences between the EU and US data protection principles: "Europeans must note that the gap is big between the American vision and the European vision."

Draft Resolution regarding the nomination by the European Commission of an expert group on data protection. (6.02.2009)
http://www.senat.fr/leg/ppr08-203.html

European Commission Disbands Privacy Group (17.02.2009)
http://www.clickz.com/3632816