Upcoming EU Data Law Will Make Europe Tricky For Social Networks 168
Thorfinn.au writes "EU politicians are mulling new data protection laws that could make Europe a hostile place for social networks. The EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding and the German Federal Minister for Consumer Protection, Ilse Aigner drew up proposals for the new data protection law which reads: 'EU law should require that consumers give their explicit consent before their data are used. And consumers generally should have the right to delete their data at any time, especially the data they post on the internet themselves. We both believe that companies who direct their services to European consumers should be subject to EU data protection laws. Otherwise, they should not be able to do business on our internal market. This also applies to social networks with users in the EU.'"
Re:That would also make it awkward for search engi (Score:4, Informative)
That would also make it awkward for search engines such as Google. Given that information posted on social networks is generally searchable, that information, once cached, is very, very difficult to erase.
See: Wayback Machine. I've used this wonderful site myself, very recently, to grab snapshots of a website I helped set up in 1997 (kitbag.com, which sells sportswear), to show someone something (which was relevant to the conversation at the time, I can't remember now what that was all about even though it wasn't two weeks ago...). Said site now uses php, I believe; way back then it was coded in ASP.
This only means that Google would have to respond to a takedown request directly from the person who owned the profile (or their heirs) -- they wouldn't be responsible for a request made to Facebook to delete data, because they would not receive a copy of that request. As for the data already cached, Facebook et al are going to have to do some major purging AND send search engines a request to do the same. Until they do, Google should not have to purge anything since they didn't originally collect it. Now this data protection act WOULD apply to Google+, but not so much to the search engine.
Re:That would also make it awkward for search engi (Score:2, Informative)
good point, and well played.
Another I just thought of is the fact that any decision taken in Europe will not apply to the UK. It is well established case law (recent decisions and reason by Judge LJ [localgover...wyer.co.uk] repeated from previous decisions such as those of Baroness Hale of Richmond and Sir Nicolas Wall, President of the Family Division of the High Court) that EU Law does not supercede UK domestic Law*. The UK currently does not have any specific legislation on the *destruction* by request, of personally identifiable data, only the security and maintenance of same. It does, however, stipulate that any such data is accurate and kept up to date.
* ECHR decisions are read as advisories in the RCJ, the High Court and Supreme Court of the UK, nothing more, and when convenient (which is most of the time) completely ignored. I have sat in on cases where this has occurred, and left the building having been sick a little in front of the Judge.
Re:That would also make it awkward for search engi (Score:5, Informative)
Another I just thought of is the fact that any decision taken in Europe will not apply to the UK. It is well established case law (recent decisions and reason by Judge LJ [localgover...wyer.co.uk] repeated from previous decisions such as those of Baroness Hale of Richmond and Sir Nicolas Wall, President of the Family Division of the High Court) that EU Law does not supercede UK domestic Law*.
EU law does not superceede any national law in any country (well, perhaps with very few exceptions which I not aware off).
The EU law system works like this: every new EU law is basically "reference" for wich the participating countries craft a similar national law. For that they usually have a grace period of about 5 years.
And: the UK do the same, they also incorporate EU laws by issuing the relevant national laws.
Re:That would also make it awkward for search engi (Score:3, Informative)
Furthermore the EcJ has ruled that EU laws can be used in lawsuits against governments. This specifically takes away a common reason for governments to delay issuing national laws. As the EcJ is supreme to national courts, the opinion of the UK courts is moot.