French Government Has Serious Reservations About the Draft EU Regulation, Putting its Adoption in Doubt

 In Parliamentary questioning on 11 June, the Minister confirmed the French Government’s commitment to ensuring adequate protection of personal data, but stated that the French Government’s opposition is based on the current concept of “one stop shop” for data controllers established in more than one Member state of the European Union. This position follows the CNIL’s expression of concern because of the potential difficulties data subjects could face in submitting complaints to a foreign data protection authority.

On the topic of international transfers, the Minister for Digital Economy also mentioned the fact that the French Government called the current international transfers safeguards “not satisfactory at all” and, in particular the Safe Harbor system which has been described as “less protective than the European framework.” This position was later confirmed by the Minister and the President of the French data protection authority, Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, in a debate held at the Parliament on “Internet and personal data.”

These statements confirm the current difficulties met by European authorities to reach an agreement on a new framework for data protection. It has been reported that other jurisdictions (e.g. Spain, Italy, and Germany) also have expressed their opposition to the text as is, which will certainly cause further delays in the adoption of the awaited reform.

Authored by Lionel de Souza