European officials approved long-awaited data protection regulations on Tuesday, the latest effort in the region to give people a greater say over how their digital information is collected and managed.The changes, expected to go into effect by early 2017, would put into law across the 28-member European Union some policies now enforced after court rulings or in specific countries only. They are intended to bolster Europeans’ privacy rights, which are viewed by the bloc as on a par with freedom of expression.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/16/technology/eu-data-privacy.html