In the political battle over the European Data Protection Regulation, a vibrant front is emerging around the issue of profiling – the automated montoring of users Internet browsing habits.  What’s  at stake is whether or not profiling should come under the auspices of the regulator and what  level of regulatory control is appropriate. One argument concerns  whether or not data that has been processed under a “pseudonym” is  addressed by the regulations.  On this point, the European Data Protection Supervisor  has weighed in.

Read more: EU data privacy – profiling the battle front

The EU Data Protection Regulation has  four times the number of amendments as the Telecoms Package.  How will the rapporteur handle this disproportionate application of lobbying?

 The full scale of the lobbying crisis over new European privacy rules has been exposed today as the rapporteur, Jan Albrecht, published his full draft report with  amendments. They total a staggering  three thousand, one hundred and thirty-three,  on 1347 pages. He  will need a court-room trolley to carry them around. How will he handle the massive conflict that the content of the amendments reflects ? 

Read more: EU data privacy law gets a whopping 3133 amendments

The review of the European privacy law – also known as the Data Protection Regulation – has come in for some comment about the lobbying and the eye-opening revelations about the scale of the corporate lobbyists amendments that have been tabled by MEPs.  But  I feel that this is a rather simplistic way of looking at it. As academics, we have more sophisticated job to do. We have to ask, what is the politics? What is problem that we are being critical of? To say, there’s a lot of lobbying may be a starting point, but is a very long way from the end-game.  So  what does it really take to analyse amendments in European legislation?

Read more: EU privacy lobbying amendments – monochrome or shades of grey?