French CaldwellMy colleague Carsten Casper sent this interesting note earlier this week:
Ever wondered what sort of information the EU (!) collects about its citizens? Here is the answer:
Criminal records, fingerprints, Visa information,… in short: there are 18 different EU mechanisms, i.e. not counting national systems. The responsible EU Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, was surprised herself. The document is a useful reference for our discussions like “the US is privacy intrusive … – no, other countries also collect lots of stuff”.
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2 Robin Wilton July 22, 2010 at 10:17 am
That’s always a fair question to ask (of any governance regime, not just the EU’s) – but not entirely on the basis of the report Carsten referred to.
That document is actually a survey of the various statutory instruments which, at an EU level, govern the collection and/or sharing of personal data. Much of that legislation is about who can collect what, of course – but equally, much of it is about constraining such data collection to specific items in specific (e.g. law enforcement) use-cases.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying the EU privacy garden is all roses – but I don’t think that report supports an assertion that an EU ‘culture of privacy’ is mythical.