US denies privacy law bullying

Date: 25/04/02

THE US is not trying to bully Europe into weakening its email privacy rules as part of the war on terrorism, a senior Washington official insisted this week.

MEPs and EU member states are working towards a deal on a new directive aimed at setting the ground rules for data privacy in all electronic communications - including email and mobile phones.

President George W. Bush said the EU should make sure law enforcement agencies have access to client data post-11 September, in a letter to Commission President Romano Prodi and Belgian premier Guy Verhofstadt.

But US Department of Justice counsel Michael Sussman told European Voice this does not mean Europe should adopt overly onerous rules that violate its citizens' privacy.

Rather, he argued, law enforcement agencies must have access to data - such as billing information or traffic data - that US firms routinely keep longer than their EU counterparts because they are not under the same legal obligation to destroy it.

'In the US we do not have a regime of data protection similar to that in Europe that requires the routine destruction of data by ISPs {internet service providers],' said Sussman, who was in Brussels for a conference on computer software piracy.

'As Europeans debate privacy, needs of the market, network security and public safety - as they each relate to information technologies - we hope that balance and moderation will prevail.'

But he said MEPs and privacy campaigners could be disappointed if they try to push through tough data privacy requirements in the directive, which also covers issues such as the right to send email sales pitches to would-be clients.

'Extreme positions on one issue, such as mandatory data destruction, can create equally strong reactions from individual governments and their law enforcement agencies and legislatures.'

He said proof of the US' moderate position on the issue came last October when Congress did not call for data retention when it pushed through the tough-worded Patriot Act.

'It had no requirement for data retention and there was never a proposal in it for that,' said Sussman.

Members of the Parliament's committee on citizens' freedoms and rights last week voted in favour of strict privacy for email users in a debate on the EU's draft data law.

They balked at the prospect of governments forcing ISPs and telecom firms to automatically retain data beyond the period needed for billing purposes, saying any measures taken by governments must be in line with rulings by the European Court of Human Rights.