I’m about to attend a series of meetings in Central London to
hear (mostly) wise men discuss what might happen to the proposed data
protection reform package.
While I don’t doubt their sincerity (and we all like a good
debate), I do wonder how accurate their predictions will turn out to be.
After all, let’s just consider what changes have already been
proposed and accepted:
A record 3,133 amendments to the proposed regulation were tabled
in the Civil Liberties Committee. Together with the amendments tabled in their
opinions by the Industry Committee (417), the Internal Market Committee (226),
the Employment Committee (27) and the Legal Affairs Committee (196), they make
a total of 3,999 amendments. This is the highest number of amendments to
a single legislative file ever tabled in the European Parliament.
Parliament's political groups negotiated 91 compromise
amendments, combining those already tabled, in order to make it easier to vote
on the regulation.
673 amendments to the draft directive were tabled in the Civil
Liberties Committee. Together with the amendments tabled by the Legal Affairs
Committee in its opinion (98), they make a total of 771 amendments.
Parliament's political groups negotiated 64 compromise
amendments, combining those already tabled, in order to make it easier to vote
on the directive.
The voting list for the regulation has 261 pages and the one for
the directive has 57 pages (a total of 318 pages).
By the time of the plenary vote in March 2014, the data
protection reform had been debated for 20 months. The committee's official
debates alone accounted for about 30 hours. Informal negotiations among
political groups took around 250 hours.
And all this was happening while, separately, the Governments of
the EU Member States, through the DAPIX committee, were considering their
position.
Anyway, what I expect to hear from the speakers is that there is
political pressure to be seen to be agreeing something, but that stakeholders may
agree to compromise on the details. Also, that there is mounting pressure in
some quarters for member states to be able to impose their own rules in
particular cases. So what may emerge from the process is an instrument that
calls itself a regulation but retains some of the characteristics of a directive. Finally, that while the texts may be
extremely long and complicated, the overwhelming majority of sensible data
controllers will be able to ignore live with it.
Quite how, in a world where so many regulators are facing tight
budgets, the measure will be effectively enforced, I really don’t know.
Source:
Image credit:
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