EU urges US legal redress to protect personal data

(BRUSSELS) - The European Union pressed US politicians Tuesday to give EU citizens the right to legal redress to protect their personal data, after US spying revelations soured ties with major allies.

EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding told a delegation led by US Senator Christopher Murphy that their visit showed "we are talking and listening, not spying on each other."

She said she had made it "very clear" that the European Commission expects Washington to follow through on promises to give EU citizens not resident in the United States "enforceable rights" over their personal data.

This involves "notably the possibility to obtain judicial redress in the United States when their personal data is misused," she said in a statement.

"I have also made clear that Europe expects to see the necessary legislative change... sooner rather than later, and in any case before summer 2014."

While both sides say they are committed to protecting personal data, the US takes into account more its commercial importance in the information age.

For the EU, personal data protection is a basic right which should not be compromised and whose commercial use must be carefully controlled.

To reconcile the two approaches, Brussels and Washington agreed a 'Safe Harbour' system to bring both together and ensure US companies respect EU norms on personal data use.

EU sources said that besides the possibility of legal redress pressed by Reding, Brussels also wanted to tighten up the Safe Harbour arrangements.

Among 13 proposed changes, the EU wants US companies to make clear the extent to which US authorities have the right to collect and process data they may have gathered, the sources said.

Crucially, the national security justification often cited for such government access must be used only as strictly necessary and in a proportionate matter, they added.

Data protection has always been a sensitive topic but recent revelations of mass surveillance by Washington on friend and foe alike, as disclosed by US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, as well as pressure exerted on giant US companies to provide personal data to the authorities, have given the matter fresh urgency.

Murphy later met deputies in the European Parliament which has taken a hard line on the spying scandal, calling for talks on a massive free trade deal to be halted and the Safe Harbour system to be scrapped.

Both Murphy and Elmar Brok, head of the Parliament's foreign affairs committee, rejected those options and stressed the need settle the data problem quickly to clear the way for the hugely important trade accord.

Murphy said Americans shared exactly the same concerns on data protection as EU citizens and a fundamental debate was under way to determine the best balance with security concerns.

The intelligence services had grown sharply since th September 11, 2001 terror attacks and some "had spread too far," Murphy said.

"We can walk and chew gum at the same time," he said, citing a well-worn US catchphrase to show that "when things go wrong, we can fix it" at the same time.

Murphy, who is chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee sub-committee on Europe, is accompanied by Congressman Gregory Meeks, both Democrats, plus Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart.

They visited Berlin on Monday on a "goodwill" mission to Europe aimed at repairing some of the damage done by the spying scandal, which reportedly included the tapping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone.