The European Parliament today adopted a legislative agreement on the reform of the EU's data protection rules, finalising the new law. After the vote Green MEP and European Parliament draftsperson/rapporteur on the data protection regulation Jan Philipp Albrecht stated:

...The new rules will give users back the right to decide on their own private data. Businesses that have accessed users' data for a specific purpose would generally not be allowed to transfer the data without the user being asked. Users will have to give clear consent for their data to be used. Crucially, firms contravening these rules will face fines of up to 4% of revenue, which could imply billions of Euro for the major global online corporations. ...