Net privacy: European parliament ready to torpedo 'Safe Harbor'

A parliamentary commission in Strasbourg, France is preparing to red-pencil a deal struck in mid-March between the European Commission and the United States over the protection of personal data.

ZDNet France gained access to a "draft resolution" dated June 8 that asks the executive branch of the EU to "review without delay" the plan, dubbed "Safe Harbor."

Safe Harbor is the name given to a code of conduct that U.S. companies are expected to respect when operating in Europe. The objective: to ensure that European directives on personal information that were ratified in 1995 and 1997 are meaningful internationally.

In the United States, however, the gathering of private information is limited by the goodwill of the companies, which are not bound by laws as strict as those in Europe. In Europe, every citizen has the right to access digital information on themselves and to order it corrected or destroyed. Full story (in French). -- Jerome Thorel, ZDNet France