The LIBE Committee missed a critical opportunity to strike the right balance between the protection of European citizens’ fundamental rights to privacy and the promotion of innovation and growth. The European Parliament vote demonstrates just how detached Brussels is from commercial reality in Europe today

Kimon Zorbas,

Vice President IAB Europe

Pseudonymous data – data collecting method that protects users’ privacy – is now included in the draft Regulation, although it remains unworkable in its proposed form.

According to Zorbas, IAB welcomes the the inclusion of pseudonymous data but also warns that the final Regulation must fine tune the principle if it is to be effective

Online industry wants Europe to adopt Germany’s approach to dealing with this type of data. Instead we see new, immature and half-baked concepts, like “reasonable consumer expectations” that create legal uncertainty and ambiguity leading to overly complex privacy policies – the very thing legislators wanted to avoid

Zorbas

Explicit consent, pseudonymous data and profiling are key provisions that have been mishandled by the European Parliament. “The adopted draft text is riddled with inconsistencies which we hope to be corrected by the Trialogue with the Council and European Commission”, stated Zorbas.

“The LIBE Committee agreed that explicit consent would be required in most circumstances which will be nearly impossible to obtain for most European B2B companies or any fledgling small or medium sized digital enterprise”, he warned.

IAB Europe is the voice of digital business. Its mission is to protect, prove, promote and professionalise Europe’s online advertising, media, market research and analytics industries. Together with its members – companies and national trade associations – IAB Europe represents over 5,500 organisations.

The member countries are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Macedonia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and United Kingdom.