16 February 2021
EurActiv, 11 February 2021.
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"The EU Council finally managed to adopt a position on widespread new data protection rules on Wednesday (10 February), as part of the so-called ePrivacy regulation, although Germany and Austria abstained from voting and Berlin’s data protection authority called for ‘significant changes’ to the text.
The 27 EU nations will now enter into talks with representatives from the European Parliament on the plans, which are expected to be fiercely contested.
The ePrivacy regulation details the conditions under which service providers are able to process electronic communications data. Such data includes those transmitted in the use of online services, including messages sent on WhatsApp and video calls on platforms such as Zoom and Skype, for example.
The overall objective of the regulation is to afford online communications the same privacy protections as those afforded to traditional telecom communications.
The Portuguese presidency was the ninth Council Presidency to attempt to find consensus between member states, following the Commission’s original 2017 proposal.
A compromise text, obtained by EURACTIV, had been circulated by the Portuguese ahead of Wednesday’s talks with deputy ambassadors, reintroducing the possibility to process electronic communications metadata and use the processing and storage capabilities of the end-users’ terminal equipment.
(...)
The Portuguese presidency was the ninth Council Presidency to attempt to find consensus between member states, following the Commission’s original 2017 proposal.
A compromise text, obtained by EURACTIV, had been circulated by the Portuguese ahead of Wednesday’s talks with deputy ambassadors, reintroducing the possibility to process electronic communications metadata and use the processing and storage capabilities of the end-users’ terminal equipment."
Source: EU: Mixed emotions as Council finally adopts position on ePrivacy text (EurActiv, 11 February 2021)
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