EU data protection bill threatens citizens' rights, warns civil rights coalition

Some of the proposed changes to Europe's data protection laws would strip citizens of their privacy rights, a coalition of international civil liberties organizations said.

The European Parliament is currently considering proposals from the European Commission for a complete overhaul of the E.U.'s data protection laws. The original laws date from 1995, the pre-Internet age, and are arguably in great need of an update. However, the debate about how to update them has been intense. Creating one regulation to replace national data protection and privacy laws in the 27 E.U. countries obviously requires compromise, but many parliamentarians report never seeing lobbying on such a scale before. In an effort to reach some sort of consensus, more than 4,000 changes to the draft text have been proposed. The civil liberties coalition, which includes Access, Bits of Freedom, EDRI, La Quadrature du Net and Privacy International, has set up a website, nakedcitizens.eu, to help concerned citizens contact their representatives in the Parliament. The groups have also presented a report based on their analysis of the proposed amendments.