Europe’s fragmented privacy protections create an “unconvincing and untenable” situation...

Europe’s fragmented privacy protections create an “unconvincing and untenable” situation for the world leader in privacy rights, Privacy International, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Media and Communications Study reported Friday, European Data Protection Day. Their survey of European privacy and human rights examined the data protection, data retention, surveillance and other privacy regimes of all 27 EU members, several non-EU countries such as Turkey and the EU itself. On the positive side, European democracies are generally in good health and privacy regulators are getting more complaints, a sign of increased awareness of the issues, they said. But laws on storage of communications traffic data are piecemeal and some countries haven’t been able to build safeguards into processes for gaining access to information from new services, they said. For example, several governments are seeking powers to conduct secret computer searches, and Italy has “ambiguous” powers for warrantless VoIP interception, they said. Some countries’ e-health systems have security faults and/or centralized registries, they said. Effective data protection is needed to help complete the internal market by building trust and confidence, the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association said Friday. High-speed broadband access and 4G mobile networks will allow Europeans to reap the benefits of the digital agenda, but their borderless nature means “homogeneous protection of personal data” is key to encouraging people to participate, ETNO said. It urged the European Commission, which is reviewing the data protection directive, to get rid of rigid rules on cross-border data flows and ease administrative burdens on industry. Many consumers are concerned about the protection of their personal data and 80 percent of young Internet users are unaware of how their personal information is used, the European Consumers’ Organization said. It wants the EC to strengthen rules for transparency and minimum use of data, establish joint liability rules between business and third parties using personal data, and introduce mandatory “privacy by default."