17/05/2011 Culture, Science, Education and Media
PACE's Committee on Culture, Science and Education unanimously adopted during its meeting in Ljubljana the report by Andreja Rihter (Slovenia, SOC) on 'Protection of privacy and personal data on the Internet and online media'.
According to the rapporteur, "the digitalisation of information has caused unprecedented possibilities for the identification of individuals through their data. In a democratic society governed by the rule of law, cyberspace must not be regarded as outer space from a legal point of view."
Therefore, she said, "the recent violations of data protection involving such major companies as Sony, Apple, Google and Facebook call on legislators in Europe to ensure that the standards developed under Article 8 of the ECHR and the Council of Europe Convention No 108 on data protection are not lowered or even challenged by technological and commercial innovations."
Mrs Rihter concluded: "Convention No 108 should be up-dated, and states outside Europe as well as the EU should accede to it."