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April 15th, 2015

Data protection and privacy must be excluded from TTIP

2 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Policy Planner

April 15th, 2015

Data protection and privacy must be excluded from TTIP

2 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

3faa534Maryant Fernández Pérez, an Advocacy Manager at European Digital Rights (EDRi) argues that those in charge of representing the EU in upcoming trade negotiations need to strongly consider human rights, privacy and data protection, and mass surveillance, among many key subjects. She also offers further resources for learning about TTIP and data protection. 

Data protection is a contentious issue in the discussions about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and other trade or investment agreements, such as the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). Now that the European Parliament is preparing to issue a non-legislative resolution on TTIP, various parliamentary committees are giving their input to the committee in charge, the Committee on International Trade (INTA).

The committee that takes the lead as regards fundamental rights and freedoms is the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE). While everyone has one eye on the reform of data protection and one eye on TTIP developments, LIBE adopted a strong Opinion on 31 March 2015 for the European Commission to respect EU fundamental rights and freedoms, especially as regards data protection and privacy.

Led by its rapporteur, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Jan Albrecht, the LIBE Opinion refers to the need for a binding and suspensive human rights clause; the exclusion of data protection and privacy; the respect of democracy and the rule of law; the fight against mass surveillance and the need for further transparency and accountability, among other important subjects.

Concerning data protection and privacy, the LIBE Committee asks the Commission to exclude these fundamental rights from both TTIP and TiSA negotiations. In fact, the EU and the United States are discussing data transfers and data protection in other fora, namely on the Safe Harbor and the Data Protection Umbrella Agreement. In relation to TiSA, the LIBE Committee rejects the draft chapter on e-commerce proposed by the US. When addressing data flows, LIBE asks for compliance of EU adequacy rules. This point is of particular importance since the European Commission “has conceded that it cannot guarantee EU citizens’ fundamental right to privacy when their data is transferred to the US”, as the Irish Times reported in relation to the case C-362/14, Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner.

Accordingly, one of the fundamental points of the Opinion is the inclusion of an enforceable horizontal clause based on Article XIV of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to exempt “the existing and future EU legal framework for the protection of personal data from the agreement, without any condition that it must be consistent with other parts of the TTIP”.

The next round of the TTIP negotiations is going to take place in New York, between 20-24 April 2015. Now, it is crucial that the INTA committee takes the LIBE Opinion in full consideration for the Commission to follow Parliament’s advice.

Here are further resources for reading bout the TTIP Resolution and data protection law in the EU:

This article originally appeared on EDRi.org and is reposted here with permission and thanks. It gives the views of the author and does not represent the position of the LSE Media Policy Project blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

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