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Eurocrats recommend right to sue American companies over snooping

Citizens need protection against the NSA

The European Commission is calling for better protection of its citizens' data, against intrusion by American agencies like the NSA.

According to Reuters, the commission wants European citizens to have the right to sue in America over misuse of their data – something the US has promised but not yet implemented.

The report quotes EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding as saying “I have ... made clear that Europe expects to see the necessary legislative change in the U.S. sooner rather than later, and in any case before summer 2014”.

Reuters has been given a look at a draft report which points out that “EU citizens do not enjoy the same rights and procedural safeguards as Americans” (something which El Reg would remark could just as easily be said of Australians, except that our government seems to lack interest in the issue, being more distracted by the discovery that its spooks spied on Indonesia's president and his wife).

Dutch European parliamentary member Sophie in't Veld complained, however, that the commission is still taking too soft a stance.

The European Parliament's civil liberties committee wants data privacy laws updated to require consent for data collection, the right for citizens to ask for their data to be deleted, and new regulations covering data sharing with non-EU countries. ®

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