The reform of EU e-privacy rules

The European Commission adopted on January 10, 2017 a legislative proposal for an e-Privacy Regulation (ePR). The ePR will replace the current e-Privacy Directive (ePD) and will complement the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with specific rules for the electronic communications sector (including OTT services).

On June 22, 2017 the European Parliament rapporteur for the proposed ePR, MEP Marju Lauristin (S&D, Estonia) will present her report on the ePR to the European Parliament Civil Liberties, Justice and Homes Affairs (LIBE) committee. The report is scheduled to be voted in the European Parliament LIBE committee and in plenary session in October. The Maltese Presidency of the Council wants to finalise the first examination of the proposal before the end of its mandate in June 2017. In this context, the BITS seminar will provide a timely platform for institutional and industry stakeholders to exchange views on key aspects of the proposal.

The purpose of this BITS seminar is to:

• Examine the relationship between the proposed ePR, the proposed European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) and the GDPR.
• Understand the implications of the proposed ePR for traditional telecommunications service providers, OTT communication service providers, machine-to-machine (M2M) communication service providers and other online providers: does the proposed ePR ensure the right level-playing field?
• Consider whether the ePR should ban cookie walls, require browsers to block third party cookies by default or condition device tracking to user consent.
• Understand whether the ePR could lead governments to extend national data retention regimes to OTT communication service providers and whether issues relating to encryption should be tackled by the ePR.

 Confirmed speakers include:

• Marju Lauristin - MEP Rapporteur for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee
• Rosa Barcelo - DG Connect
• Sophie Louveaux - European Data Protection Supervisor
• Prof. Nico van Eijk - University of Amsterdam