The telecom package debated by the European Parliament

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The European Parliament (EP) discussed on 2 September 2008 the draft
directives to reform the EU framework on electronic communications (telecom
package). Besides the debates on the telecom issues, the MEPs have discussed
the role of the ISPs in combating Intellectual Property Rights violations
and the modifications to the ePrivacy directive in order to include more
provisions on consumer protection and data security.

Some of the amendments that were passed by the EP Committees were challenged
by some of the speakers, beliving they could endanger the principle of the
neutrality of the Internet. Rebecca Harms (Germany), David
Hammerstein (Spain) and Eva-Britt Svensson (Sweden) considered that the
proposals will just pave the way to France’s graduated response and
supported the idea that the ISPs should not become the police of the
Internet. The filtering measures were challenged, following some of the
conclusions in the seminar on the Telecoms Package and Network Filtering
arranged by Swedish MEP Christofer Fjellne on 27 August 2008 ( as
reported in the previous EDRi-gram). Of course, the French presidency
representative considered that the ISPs should have the obligation to inform
its users about unlawful content.

The dangerous amendments were also challenged by the European Data
Protection Supervisor (EDPS). In his opinion issued just before the EP’s
debate, the EDPS presented “some observations about ad hoc amendments that
may weaken the protection of personal data and privacy of individuals using
the Internet. Some of the amendments that cause concern are related to
traffic data and the protection of intellectual property rights, as well as
regulation of notification of security breaches.” The EDPS considered that
if all the debatable amendments were adopted “the net effect will be
increased monitoring of Internet users’ activities, which inevitably would
infringe upon their data protection and privacy rights.”

The EDPS also expressed his positive remarks on some amendments to the
ePrivacy directive: “The EDPS is particularly pleased about the inclusion of
companies operating on the Internet under the scope of the obligation to
notify security breaches. He is also pleased with the amendment that enables
legal and natural persons to file legal actions for infringement of any
provision of the ePrivacy Directive (not only spam).”

Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, asked
the EP not to limit the breach notification procedure only to serious cases
accepted by the competent authority, as modified by the LIBE committee.

The vote on the entire Telecom package will take place in the next
Parliamentary session during 22-25 September 2008.

The EP debate on Telecoms Package (2.09.2008)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sce/server/internet/cre/sce_cre_02.jsp

Telecoms Package : the spectre of the graduated response hangs over Europe
(3.09.2008)
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/telecoms-package_the-spectre-of-graduated-response-hangs-over-europe

EU Parliament debates telco reform ahead of vote (4.09.2008)
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9402

Comments on selected issues that arise from the IMCO report on the review of
Directive 2002/22/EC (Universal Service) & Directive 2002/58/EC (ePrivacy)
(2.08.2008)
http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/Consultation/Comments/2008/08-09-02_Comments_ePrivacy_EN.pdf

EDRi-gram: Seminar on the Telecoms Package and Network Filtering
(27.08.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.16/telecoms-package-seminar

EDRi-gram: Control on Internet users pushed with the new telecom package
(2.07.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.13/telecom-package-internet