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Public Policy Updates

• February 2008
• June 2007
• January 2007

February 2008

• 1. New ICC/ESOMAR International Code
• 2. The European Commission’s Data Privacy Working Party
• 3. The EU Directive on Unfair Commercial Practices
• 4. The EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive
• 5. European Commission White Paper on Obesity
• 6. EU developing policy on RFID and e-privacy
• 7. EU developing policy on children’s privacy issues
• 8. Ensuring ISO 20252 compliance from subcontractors
• 9. Huge fines for silent calls in the UK
• 10. US House approves Do-Not-Call improvement legislation
• 11. US push for registry of drug makers’ gifts to doctors
• 12. Victory for issue polling in Florida
• 13. Global data storage and retention
• 14. Political robocalls, ADAD and IVR

Further information

For more information please contact Anna Alù:

a.alu@esomar.org

Public Policy Update - February 2008

 

2. Data Privacy Working Party

The European Commission’s Data Privacy Working Party issued an opinion on personal data last year to provide more guidance on how to apply data privacy rules. It states that video surveillance is covered by data privacy rules (even if some of the people recorded are not actually identifiable) and discusses whether IP addresses are covered (even if the user cannot be identified in some cases).
Interestingly for market research, it looks at the possibility of whether non-aggregated data for statistics should be treated as personal data. It states that if technical and organisational measures are in place to protect the data from being identifiable (eg encryption), this might be enough for legislators to consider that the individual persons are not identifiable taking account of all the means likely reasonably to be used by the controller or any one else to identify the individuals. In this case it could be a condition for the information not to be considered as personal data and its processing not to be subject to the Directive.

Next steps: An ESOMAR project team of experts will study this opinion to see whether it impacts guidelines for good practice.

More information

http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2007/wp136_en.pdf

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