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E.U. teams up with privacy bad boy

by on08 December 2008

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Google is our friend


The E.U. going to have another think about its privacy regulations and has asked privacy bad-boy Google to lend it a hand.

The group responsible for this update, the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, has asked a five-person expert group to help it. An executive from Google has been asked to join. Peter Fleischer, who acts as Google's Global Privacy Counsel, has been named as the bloke it will ask.

Google and the E.U. have been at each other's throats over the issue of privacy for ages, so using Fleischer is a bit like asking a lLion to draft rules for protecting the wildebeest. The E.U.'s privacy regulations need an update. They are based on a 1995 Directive entitled "on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data," which is a bit like a title for Borat film.

Trying to set up a legal framework for handling personal data has made privacy regulations is a bit like herding cats. The European Parliament adopted an update in 2002 which brought in terminology like "traffic data," "location data," and "electronic mail."

The focus appears to have been driven by the recognition that service providers collect lots of information on their customers that can help reveal personal information about them. The rules require that this data be anonymized or destroyed once it's used for any relevant business purposes.
Last modified on 09 December 2008
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