TOTAL: {[ getCartTotalCost() | currencyFilter ]} Update cart for total shopping_basket Checkout

Europe Data Protection Digest | Notes from the IAPP Europe Managing Director, February 6, 2015 Related reading: A view from Brussels: EDPS sends signal on data transfers 

rss_feed

""

As a European, I was taught that privacy is a fundamental right, and the EU institutions, the European Parliament in particular, are working on the current data protection reform in an effort to enhance and protect that right in an era of ubiquitous technology and constant threats to our privacy.

For that reason, some of the EU antiterrorism measures that have been discussed, or rumoured, in the aftermath of the Paris attacks have raised strong criticism, both within the EU institutions (again, Parliament in particular) and in the public opinion.

As someone who has made the choice to relocate to a Muslim country—granted, a rich and westernised one, light years away from those that are making the news these past few weeks—I am trying to keep an open mind: In line with the values we Europeans have the privilege of having been raised with, I remind myself that there are many points of view from which to look at things. In this context, I was particularly interested to read a column by Andreas Hieronymus, board member of the European Network Against Racism, ENAR, on the implications of the data protection reform for ethnic and religious minorities.

In the column, published by EurActiv this week, Hieronymus argues “for European ethnic and religious minorities, this regulation might not change much: While official data on incidences of racial discrimination are widely missing in Europe, governments continue to illegally collect data on them.” Unexpectedly, he suggests collecting more data, not less. He writes that research has “shown that over 65 percent of ethnic minorities would be in favour of providing, on an anonymous basis, personal information about their ethnic origin, as part of a census, if that could help combat discrimination in their country.”

Comments

If you want to comment on this post, you need to login.