EU agrees in principle to new data-protection oversight

October 07, 2013

Despite disagreements, Europe’s justice ministers Monday agreed “in principle” that companies doing business in the European Union will have to answer to only one data-protection authority rather than 28. The “one-stop shop” principle is central to the proposal put forward by E.U. Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding. Under the proposed rule, when personal data is processed by a company in more than one member state, one single supervisory authority should be responsible for monitoring the activity—namely, the supervisory authority of the member state in which the company has its main establishment. French officials had called for a joint decision-making method between national supervisory authorities, but others, including Irish Justice Minister Alan Shatter, were strongly against the idea. The new one-stop shop rule could have big ramifications for Ireland as many international companies such as Facebook and Google are based there, meaning the Irish data-protection authorities would have jurisdiction. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2052740/eu-ministers-agree-in-principle-to-new-data-protection-oversight.html#tk.rss_all