On January 25th the European Commission formally unveiled an overhaul of the continent’s data-protection rules. The proposal for a snappily titled “Regulation on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data” is unlikely to become a bestseller. Yet the 117-page booklet might affect every one of the European Union’s 500m citizens, every one of its businesses, and many more beyond. It is “the biggest, most impactful piece of legislation that the European Union could produce unless they developed tax powers,” says Joe McNamee of European Digital Rights, a lobby group.The law has two main goals: to give individuals greater control over their personal information and to make it easier for companies to do business in Europe (see this week’s print edition). Perhaps more importantly, it also, for the first time, gives Europeans what has been dubbed the “right to be forgotten”. This would require data-hoarding organisations, from web firms to universities, to own up to an individual what information they have on him, and to erase it if he asks them to.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/01/online-privacy