Category: News

  I thought I would write a blog that explains where we are in relation to the Regulation. Just over two years ago, the European Commission published a proposal for a Data Protection Regulation to replace Directive 95/46/EC. Following publication, the Commission’s text has been scrutinised by the European Parliament and by the Council of Ministers. Each of European Parliament and the Council of Ministers can propose amendments to the Commission’s proposals and each approves a text containing amendments to

Last Friday, the Data Protection Regulation faced a tough challenge; at the Council of Ministers, two influential lawyers advising the Council and the Commission had a public disagreement which exposed two fundamentally different opinions. The unexpected (and late) disagreement was over whether the one-stop shop was lawful. Two years after the proposal was first suggested by the Commission, leading legal services counsel for the Council of Ministers lobbed a hand-grenade into the discussions: he labelled the one-stop shop as being a “very bad outcome” for data subjects and

Following last week’s European Summit Meeting of Heads of State, many commentators have assumed that the Data Protection Regulation will fail to meet the June 2014 deadline; I am not so sure of this and I explain why. As you know, the Regulation passed the European Parliament hurdle two weeks ago; it is waiting now for the Council of Ministers meeting in December to see what further progress it will make. Anyway before the Summit, Mr. Cameron, our PM, arrived

Well I have just had a speed read of the leaked amendments that are being debated by the European Parliament today (see references). The general impression is that the Snowden revelations about the NSA has strengthened the Parliament’s view on the provisions that relate to the protection of data subjects when there is data sharing with the authorities. I have also concluded that all that lobbying by corporate USA and Internet business has come to very little. They have very little to show for their

In my previous blog on Operation Millipede, I said that October 8th would be an interesting day; and so it turned out. The Home Affairs Select Committee is not convinced that the Information Commissioner (ICO) is going about his investigation in the right way and MPs on the Committee made their objections abundantly clear. To some extent, I agree with the Committee’s assessment and I explain why in the blog. Contrary to the ICO’s assertions before the Committee, I think a Monetary Penalty