The 626-member European Parliament is expected to ratify a compromise data protection directive tomorrow that would limit the ability of the law enforcement authorities of its 15 member nations to capture the personal information and communications of Internet users.
The European Union’s two largest political groups, the European Peoples Party and European Democrats and the Party of European Socialists with a combined membership of 411, brokered the compromise directive.
Under that compromise, law enforcement agencies of the European Union’s 15 member nations could only monitor an individuals electronic communications and capture the personal information of that person in connection with criminal investigations or the protection of national and public safety with the approval of the European Court of Human Rights.
The directive also requires the governments of all member nations to adopt laws that both protect the privacy of the information obtained about a person and how long law enforcement authorities may keep it in their files.
Additionally, it requires that Parliament review the directive after it has been in force for three years.
But the political parties affirmed proposals pending before Parliament that would require individuals to opt in to receive unsolicited commercial e-mails and to opt out from allowing operators of Internet sites to capture both their personal information and Internet use.
Last week a coalition of 40 international privacy groups objected to a version that would have given law enforcement uncontrolled authority to capture information about Internet users and their communications.
Led by the U.S-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, the coalition argued that law enforcement authorities should only be allowed to invade the electronic communications of individuals in exceptional cases with the approval of the courts.
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