European Parliament’s LIBE Committee (Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee) has literally just concluded its debate on the proposed DP Regulation and Directive.
The debate focused mainly on the procedure, timetable, the use of delegated acts (which the Commission defended) and plans for a more detailed debate in the Inter-parliamentary Meeting with national parliaments to be held on 9-10 October.
Delegated acts are of concern in that the Commission is now effectively empowered to draft the detail around the core requirements of the Regulations and Directive rather than these having to be debated at length by the Parliament. Such powers were not available during the last DP Directive nor the more recent Consumer Credit Directive and came out of the Treaty of Lisbon which came into effect on 1 December 2009.
Regulatory Strategies Ltd see a lengthy process to move the Directive and Regulations forward and interestingly are seeing many organisations using the intervening period to ensure full compliance with the existing Directive / DPA as migration to any new regime will be easier from this base.
The UK Information Commissioner presented at a recent evidence session in front of the UK Parliament’s Justice Select Committee where he was reported as saying that from an ICO point of view, the requirements would be both unworkable and exorbitantly expensive but he was optimistic that UK views would be taken into account.
A Regulatory Strategies opinion piece is attached which summarises the draft Regulations as currently being debated: dp-regs
Mike Bradfor, Director, Regulatory Strategies Ltd – www.regulatorystrategies.co.uk
