A Call for Unified EU Data Protection Rules

The European Union's Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding gave a speech at the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union calling for data protection law reform across the European Union.

Under current laws, companies that operate across several member states are subject to abide by the corporate rules across all the 27 different states - in some cases, these rules may be contradictory. Reding cites an administrative costs of $2.3 billion associated with trying to manage all these fragmented corporate rules.

Vivian Reding is calling for reform, focusing on simplification, consistent enforcement and innovation. This would include:

• Simpler and unified binding corporate rules with a single point of contact for companies amongst the data protection authorities
• Consistent enforcement of rules across Europe. Currently, some data protection authorities lack power to adopt legal binding decisions.
• Promote innovation in both the regulatory models for data protection as well as in the use of new technology.

To learn more about the ideas for a unified European Union data protection plan, or Vivian's ideas on creating your own binding corporate rules now, read here.

Hat tip to CSO Online.