Paris, 3 October 2017 – Yesterday, the ITRE (‘industry’) Committee of the European Parliament has adopted its Opinion on the ePrivacy Regulation. This Opinion is pretty much the same calamity that has been adopted last week by the IMCO (‘consumers protection’) Committee, calling for a general bypassing of users’ consent. Fortunately, these are just ‘opinions’ and will not bind the LIBE (‘civil liberties’) Committee voting on its final Report on 11 October. Still, these Opinions clearly reflect how some Members of the European Parliament are ready to sell out our privacy to big firms. Call them now to reverse this trend.



The majority of the ITRE Committee, led by their liberal rapporteur Kaja Kallas, aims for enabling companies to bypass our consent for analysing metadata of our communications (who we are communicating with, when, how, from where…). This would apply to any purpose considered ‘compatible’ with the service they provide. A ‘compatible’ purpose may mean anything, is purposely vague and, in fact, would just allow companies to monitor our communications, to list the IP addresses we connect to and to geolocate us only for economic purposes.

Furthermore, the ITRE Opinion is in favor of allowing companies to geolocate our phones in stores, streets or cites without our consent. It appears that the ITRE Opinion is even weaker than the initial Proposal: companies would no longer be required to display posters in the monitored area in order to inform us about such measures.

Finally, the majority of ITRE Members want our personal data to be traded just as money. Users not willing to share their data may be blocked from websites, unless they pay a subscription. Putting people in a situation where they have to trade their fundamental rights is the shortest way to crush the very purpose of such rights.

Amendments identical to these absurd and dangerous Opinions have been tabled in the LIBE Committee, which will vote its decisive Report on 11 October. Call LIBE Members now and require such amendments to be rejected.

Learn more, spread the message and act now on: eprivacy.laquadrature.net