The European Commission has issued proposals to update the data protection laws in the EU. The main effect of the proposals would be to increase and harmonise the protection of personal data held by companies in the EU, but also to impose steep penalties for any breaches. They also give some new rights to citizens, such as the right to transfer data from one organisation to another (data portability) and have all data about them deleted - the "right to be forgotten". The new laws will apply to all companies that have operations in the EU.
IDC welcomes the Commission's determination to ensure that there is one single law across the EU that is applied uniformly throughout Europe independent of where you are and which data protection authority is responsible for you. This will remove the messy situation we currently have with multiple laws and regulators.
"For harmonisation to happen, the privacy rules have to meet the sensitivities of the most conservative countries, in particular Germany, otherwise we will just end up where we are now, with a highly fragmented landscape and no legal certainty for companies operating in the EU," said David Bradshaw, research manager for cloud services at IDC. "The main problem is that the new rules are far more robust than those that apply in many other EU countries, in particular the UK. These countries will bear the main cost of getting to a single market."
IDC welcomes the Commission's determination to ensure that there is one single law across the EU that is applied uniformly throughout Europe independent of where you are and which data protection authority is responsible for you. This will remove the messy situation we currently have with multiple laws and regulators.
"For harmonisation to happen, the privacy rules have to meet the sensitivities of the most conservative countries, in particular Germany, otherwise we will just end up where we are now, with a highly fragmented landscape and no legal certainty for companies operating in the EU," said David Bradshaw, research manager for cloud services at IDC. "The main problem is that the new rules are far more robust than those that apply in many other EU countries, in particular the UK. These countries will bear the main cost of getting to a single market."
