UK Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has called on the EU to abandon its ‘one size fits all’ approach to European data protection law, claiming the proposed update of the law would harm businesses.
“A preoccupation with imposing a single, inflexible, codified data protection regime on the whole of the European Union, regardless of the different cultures and different legal systems, carries with it serious risks,” Clarke said in a speech to the British Chamber of Commerce in Brussels.
In a wide ranging address, he criticised EU plans that would force website operators to delete user details, creating a “right to be forgotten”. Earlier this year Viviane Reding, vice president of the European Commission, said she wanted users to have the right to withdraw their consent to companies using their data. Reding said companies should prove that they need to keep customers’ data.
But Clarke said he was unsure how the plans could work in practice. He said the plans could censor publically available information and that it would adversely affect businesses and public sector organisations. “A whole range of vital services that consumers rely upon critically depend, in turn, on the availability of data,” he said.
“Without appropriately regulated data on credit histories, then loans and mortgages might in future be very limitedly available – and might even only be available to the very wealthy,” Clarke said.
He said new data protection laws should also make it easier for companies to transfer customer data. “We should consider moving from a system which restricts information based on national standards of data protection, to a system based on the standard of data protection of the particular company involved – far more relevant to modern methods of business,” Clarke said.
