European Parliament Urged To Keep Internet Use Data Private
A coalition of international privacy groups is urging the European Parliament to reject a proposal that would allow the law enforcement agencies of its member nations to monitor the Internet and retain the communications and personal information of its users.
A vote on the proposal to amend its directive relating to the use and protection of the personal information is scheduled for Wednesday in Brussels.
“We urge you to vote against general and exploratory data retention of individual’s electronic communications by law enforcement authorities,” the coalition said in a letter to Pat Cox, Parliament’s president.
Cox was not available for comment, and there was no indication from Parliament as to whether it will go along with the coalition’s request.
Led by the U.S.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, the coalition of 40 privacy groups, said law enforcement agencies should only have access to a person’s use of electronic communications via the Internet “in exceptional cases…authorized only by the judicial or other competent authorities on a case-by-case basis.”
The coalition went on to say that it cannot “justify actions that undermine the most fundamental rights of democratic states” to decide for themselves who has access to an individual’s electronic communications and their personal information.
“One of the best privacy safeguards is to minimize the collection of personal data,” the letter continued.
The coalition also stated that giving law enforcement agencies unlimited access to a person’s electronic communications could “have disastrous consequences for the most sensitive and confidential types of personal data.”
