Europe Moves Ahead on Privacy

[Commentary] The European Union is considering far-reaching privacy regulations that would give the citizens of its member countries significant control over how Web sites and marketing companies collect and use data about them. Years in the making, the effort stands in stark contrast to the much slower pace of discussions about online privacy laws in Washington.

Europe has historically been more protective of personal information than the United States, which still has no general law to protect people’s privacy online while most E.U. nations do. The privacy policies of American companies are voluntary, with the exception of protection under federal laws for certain kinds of sensitive information like health records and data about children younger than 13. Now, European policy makers are proposing to harmonize new, tougher rules across the 27-member union. Internet companies and the Obama administration are lobbying against some of the measures, which they argue would place onerous restrictions on services that people want to use and impede the sharing of information between Europe and the United States, particularly between law enforcement agencies. But privacy advocates say that those concerns are overblown and that most Internet companies and news sites would easily get the consent of users who already willingly hand them personal information. The Obama administration has talked with technology and marketing companies about creating voluntary industry standards. But the best way to ensure that Americans can keep their personal information private is through federal legislation backed by regulatory enforcement. Europe is setting an example of how that might be accomplished. While the United States is unlikely to go as far as the E.U., it needs to do a lot more.