ePrivacy Report approved by European Parliament
06 december 2017
In the November 2017 edition of the EDPS Newsletter, the Authority pointed out that on 27 October 2017, the plenary of the European Parliament approved the Report on the ePrivacy Regulation. This will provide the basis for negotiations with the European Council and European Commission on the final text. Once adopted, the new ePrivacy Regulation will update the rules of the road for privacy and electronic communications.
The Report adopted in the plenary builds followed many of the recommendations provided by the EDPS in Opinion of 24 April 2017, our Preliminary Opinion of 22 July 2016 and, most recently, in Recommendations on the proposed parliamentary amendments. It also builds on the recommendations set out in the Article 29 Working Party Opinion on the proposed Regulation.
Importantly, and despite massive lobbying efforts, the Report saw no expansion of the legal bases for the processing of personal data. Amendments aimed at allowing further processing of data for compatible purposes or on the basis of legitimate interest were not included in the Report. In particular, the text clearly prohibits any further processing of communications metadata. With few exceptions, internet companies and communication providers should only be able to use the data of users with their consent. The Report prohibits tracking walls and take-it-or-leave-it approaches, helps ensure that consent is genuinely freely given and also requires privacy by default for software settings.
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