American industry warned to move on data protection

Date: 18/06/1998

By Peter Chapman

TOP EU single market officials are set to visit Washington next week as fears mount that US firms will not be ready for Union data protection rules entering into force in the autumn.

John Mogg, the European Commission's director-general for the single market, will meet US Under-Secretary for International Trade David Aaron next Thursday (25 June) to discuss how far American industry has progressed in preparing codes of conduct to comply with the EU directive.

The visit follows recent attacks by Aaron and his boss, Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, on US industry's efforts to make sure 'adequate protection' of personal data will be in place by October.

They have warned that failure to introduce such measures in time could lead to EU member states blocking exports of data to the US once the directive comes into force.

“Daley has been making some threatening remarks that the private sector has not done a fat lot. He is not afraid to tell them. It is clear there is a lot of pressure on the private sector,” said a senior Commission official. “The federal trade commission recently did a study of 1,400 websites of companies and found that only 14&percent; or so of them were listing any privacy policies at all.”

Poor US preparations will increase pressure at the meeting to plan for a high level of cooperation between the EU and US to resolve disputes sparked by data export bans, if and when they occur, rapidly.

“We want to talk about how we see the procedure unfolding if a member state actually blocks a data transfer. We want to see how we can get the US involved in the procedure as quickly as possible,” said the official.