Socialists want business mobile phone users to employ data protection officers

EPP Group criticises absurd and non-practicable Socialist proposals for new EU data protection law

Hubert Pirker MEP has criticised the law amendments made by Socialist MEPs to EU data protection law as absurd and non-practicable. "Every self-employed person, every hotel, every crafts business will have to employ their own data protection officer if they store somewhere more than 250 addresses. Even every single plumber or innkeeper who stores more than 250 phone numbers in his mobile phone, must hire a data protection officer under special dismissal protection, according to the Socialist proposals", Pirker said visibly displeased. "Such amendments are out of touch with reality and will asphyxiate even the slightest attempt of entrepreneurial initiative in the EU", he stressed.

Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs today discussed a total of 3133 amendments to the general overhaul of the EU's data protection law. "It is absolutely necessary to adapt European data protection to the age of cloud computing and social networks. But this must not lead to an avalanche of bureaucracy, which will massively slow down innovation and entrepreneurial activities", Pirker said. In addition to the compulsory data protection officer, the Socialists tabled amendments to require companies which store data of more than 250 persons to keep records of every single data handling event related to that data. Furthermore, they want to set up a new control authority to certify companies handling "less than 500 data subjects per year."

"We need practicable solutions with a sense of proportion, no new calls for additional red tape. Those who table such proposals have no clue about economy. It is completely disproportional that small and medium-sized enterprises, every time they print an address label, send an email or change a phone number stored in mobile phones need to file a record of such an event. We are going to vote against these Socialist proposals", explained Pirker.

Pirker also warned against hampering free internet services by additional costly requirements: "Consumers want both simple and effective data protection rules and free and innovative internet services. This is why we need a reasonable compromise between these two goals. We have to pay particular attention not to increase costs for online media", said Pirker.