On October 21, a key European parliamentary committee (the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (“Committee”) approved an amended version of the draft EU Data Protection Regulation, paving the way for further negotiations with EU governmental bodies.  The goal, according to a press release by the Committee, is to reach compromise on the draft agreement and a vote prior to the May 2014 EU Parliamentary elections.  The proposed legislation (which passed in a 51-1 vote) contains a number of key concepts, including:

Right to Erasure:

Stronger than the previously worded “Right to be Forgotten”, the proposed legislation contains a “Right to Erasure”, whereby a data subject would have the right to ask any entity holding personal data on that data subject to erase the personal data upon request.  Moreover, if the personal data has been “replicated” with other entities, the data controller to whom the request has been made must forward the request to the other entities it has transferred the data subject’s personal data to.

Increased Sanctions:  

The Committee voted to increase the amount of penalties that could be levied for companies that violate the rules.  Whereas previously the proposal was penalties up to 1 million euros or 2% of worldwide annual turnover revenue of the company, the Committee ratcheted up the proposed penalties to 100 million euros or up to 5% of annual worldwide revenue, whichever is greater—a significant increase that illustrates the potentially expensive consequences of violating the data protection legislation.

Data transfers to non-EU countries:   

Specifically referencing the June 2013 Snowden disclosure of mass surveillance by the U.S. government’s PRISM program, the Committee proposed that if a company in the EU was requested to disclose personal data to a government located outside the EU, the entity would need to seek specific authorization from the data protection authority located in the EU country, before transferring any such personal data outside of the EU.  The new provision reflects the acute concern of the EU over the Snowden revelations of this summer.

Profiling:

The package adopted by the Committee includes a provision limiting the practice of profiling, i.e. “a practice used to analyze or predict a person’s performance at work, economic situation, location, health or behavior.”  Now, individual consent (such as that provided by a contract) would be needed in order to profile, and any individual should possess the right to object to such profiling.

Although the Committee hopes to reach agreement with the other EU legislative bodies (such as the national governments that compose the European Council) by May 2014, it is clear that there is still a long road ahead before the new legislation is finalized and enacted.  The contours of the proposed Regulation may change after further rounds of negotiations.  However, the recent proposals by the Committee help to illuminate the direction that the Regulation is heading.