These questions and others were discussed during a seminar dedicated to “privacy in the digital age”, which took place yesterday and was hosted by the ALDE group to the European Parliament. The aim of the meeting was to highlight this topic at the European level in the light of new actions in several member states to increase surveillance. For example, in June 2008 Sweden introduced a new law allowing authorities to monitor e-mails and telephone calls, particularly international traffic.

There have also been initiatives to encourage data protection, namely France and Belgium have launched such a proposal after some European firms have reported lost data due to “external causes” (see the T-Mobile case where information about 17 million clients was lost); and a new law has been proposed in Italy to abolish the publication in newspapers of unauthorized tapped conversations. Such developments leave us wondering what the role of governments and the EU should be in protecting people, while refraining from infringing on their right to privacy. 

The seminar concluded that greater collaboration is needed between the EU institutions to establish a clear set of guidelines regarding access to people’s private lives and that EU member states must also work more closely together between themselves and also with sociologists, philosophers and scientists as new forms of communication are developed. ELDR considers that such actions are essential for ensuring the privacy of personal information and guaranteeing the protection of fundamental human rights.