A top lawmaker on Tuesday proposed harmonizing European Union privacy rules so that an Internet company could operate across the 27-country bloc as long as its data protection policies had been approved by a single member state.Viviane Reding, vice president of the European Commission, said unnecessary hurdles created by privacy rules that date to 1995, when the Internet was in its infancy, were costing companies €2.3 billion, or $3.1 billion, a year as regulators in 27 different nations applied their own rules.To read this report in The New York Times in full, see:
www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/technology/a-proposal-for-eu-wide-data-protection-regulation.htmlAlso see:EU data protection reform to replace national laws [AP]
The European Union wants to replace a mishmash of national laws on data protection with one bloc-wide reform, updating laws put in place long before Facebook and other social networking sites even existed.EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Monday that social networks must become more open about how they operate. Under her proposals, businesses — including Internet service providers — would have additional responsibilities, such as having to inform users of what data about them is being collected, for what purpose, and how it is stored.
www.cbsnews.com/8301-501366_162-57332027/eu-data-protection-reform-to-replace-national-laws/