Type: Acts of the European Union: Resolution on a comprehensive approach on personal data protection in the European Union

Authority: European Authorities - European Union: European Parliament

Date: 07/06/2011

Subject: The European Parliament strongly welcomes and supports the Commission communication entitled ‘A comprehensive approach on personal data protection in the European Union’ and its focus on strengthening existing arrangements, putting forward new principles and mechanisms and ensuring coherence and high standards of data protection in the new setting offered by the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty (Article 16 TFEU) and the now binding Charter of Fundamental Rights, particularly its Article 8; it emphasises that the standards and principles set out in Directive 95/46/EC represent an ideal starting point and should be further elaborated, extended and enforced, as part of a modern data protection law. The Parliament considers it imperative to extend the application of the general data protection rules to the areas of police and judicial cooperation, including processing at domestic level, taking particular account of the questionable trend towards systematic re-use of private-sector personal data for law enforcement purposes, while also allowing, where strictly necessary and proportionate in a democratic society, for narrowly tailored and harmonised limitations to certain data protection rights of the individual; it emphasises the need for the processing of personal data by institutions and bodies of the European Union, which is governed by Regulation (EC) No 45/2001, to be included within the scope of the new framework. The Parliament calls on the Commission to streamline and strengthen current procedures for international data transfers – legally binding agreements and binding corporate rules – and to define on the basis of the personal data protection principles the ambitious core EU data protection aspects to be used in international agreements; it stresses that the provisions of EU personal data protection agreements with third countries should give European citizens the same level of personal data protection as that provided within the European Union.

Classification: Freedoms - Art. 8 Personal data: fairly processing - Personal data: consent - Personal data: access - Personal data: rectification - Personal data: independent authority

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