“A uniform and modern data protection law for the European Union is exactly what we need to secure trust and generate growth in the digital single market,” said Vice-President Viviane Reding, the EU’s Justice Commissioner, as she marked European Data Protection Day on Monday.
As ever with things European, reform has taken a long time to materialise. The existing data protection laws date back to 1995 when the Internet was just taking off and there was little inkling of the profound changes it would usher in.
Since then, the data protection issues raised by the rampant growth of the Internet, the rise of IT outsourcing, high bandwidth data networks and the arrival of cloud computing have been compounded because the 27 Member States implemented the 1995 rules differently. As a result there have been divergent approaches to enforcement.
Reform was obviously needed but it took until January 2012 for proposed changes to be tabled. Now, the Commission says, considerable headway has been made and negotiations on the new rules “are progressing at full speed”. The Irish Presidency is committed to the cause, detailed discussions were held among European justice ministers at the beginning of the year and on January 8 European Parliament rapporteurs expressed their full support for the proposed new data protection rules. MEPs are due to vote on the proposals in April.
Confidence online
As things stand, consumers lack the confidence to provide their personal data online, meaning they are less likely to use online services. While 74 per cent of Europeans think that disclosing personal data is increasingly part of modern life, 72 per cent of Internet users are worried that they give away too much personal information and feel they are not in complete control of their data.
Strong, reliable, consistently applied rules will strengthen people’s confidence and make data processing safer and cheaper. The hope is that this confidence will in turn drive growth. Some estimates show that the EU’s gross domestic product could grow by an additional 4 per cent by 2020 if Europe succeeds in creating a digital single market. The Commission says that a single law will do away with the current fragmentation and costly administration, leading to savings for businesses of around €2.3 billion a year.
More importantly perhaps, it will encourage the development of whole new markets, services and products that will fuel economic growth, boost competitiveness and make public services more efficient.
Personal data is valuable
“We live in a digital world in which personal data has enormous economic value. Already, a person’s location patterns can be captured and tracked. Soon, sensors will tell phones whether their users are alone or in a crowd,” said Reding.
European businesses need to feel they are able to take advantage of the new computing and information-sharing landscape, but at the same time consumers need to feel safe online. “A uniform and modern data protection law for the European Union is exactly what we need to secure trust and generate growth in the digital single market,” Reding said.
The move to harmonise Europe’s data protection laws is also an acknowledgment that in the digital age the collection and storage of personal information is essential and inevitable - and once uploaded information can be moved seamlessly from one jurisdiction to another. There are no national borders and cloud computing means data may be sent from Berlin to be processed in Boston and stored in Bangalore.
Unfilled ICT jobs
But while the case for reform may be clear, the economic boost that is promised won’t be delivered unless Europe improves its ICT skills and training. As Reding’s fellow Vice President Neelie Kroes, Commissioner with responsibility for all matters digital told the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, there are 700,000 unfilled ICT jobs across Europe at present.
It is unjustifiable that at a time of record youth unemployment - and when the number of jobs in ICT has increased by 4 per cent in every year since the financial crisis began - that the digital skills gap is widening even as the unemployment queues are growing.
Modernisation of data protection laws is a critical element of the Commission’s ambition to make ICT the new backbone of Europe’s economy. But without action on ICT skills the opportunities this reform creates will be squandered.
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