Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-25-Speech-3-416"
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"en.20090325.31.3-416"2
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"Mr President, we live in an age where everyone – governments, private companies and even criminals – seek the greatest possible access to our electronic data, to our private life.
The question of consent is extremely complicated and, if we do not resolve it right now, it will come back to haunt us. Let me give you an example: a few decades ago, no-one knew which newspaper I read; only my family and perhaps a few of my friends. That is why – and this is especially true during a dictatorship – the secret services tried to find out, so that they could put me on file. So that they could say Mr Lambrinidis reads such and such a newspaper, so he must be a Communist or he must be pro-American. Today, every time I read a newspaper, I leave a trail. This means that private companies can compile similar ‘files’, can create a profile for me, of the policies in which I believe, of my eating habits and even of my health. Does the fact that I visit these websites mean that I consent to my society going back 40 years?
We urgently need to pass sensible laws which strike a balance between combating crime and protecting rights in the electronic age. This balance appears difficult but it is not. It is feasible. We need to stop dealing with cyberspace as if it were something outside our daily life, something separate. It is our life. That means that any rights or barriers which apply to the police and private companies inside the Internet must also apply outside, otherwise we run the risk of abolishing freedoms for the sake of security and, ultimately, of having neither freedoms nor real security.
To close, my warmest thanks to the shadow rapporteurs of all the political groups whom I see here in the House for their very considerable support. My thanks to all the MEPs in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs for the unanimous support which this report received from all parties. I look forward to its being approved by plenary.
The Internet in particular provides details about our private lives, something which was unimaginable a few years ago. At the same time, it is clear that it enhances the facility for us to exercise our fundamental rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of political action, freedom of knowledge and education and freedom of association.
It is less clear that we are in danger of these very freedoms being violated as a result of using the Internet, with secret surveillance by governments, private companies or even criminals of what we do or look at on the Internet. It is therefore even less clear how we can strike a balance here, how we can regulate the Internet in such a way that allows us to draw on its benefits, while limiting its obvious dangers.
My report attempts to answer these questions. Among other things:
firstly, it calls for a European initiative to create a global Internet Bill of Rights;
secondly, it signals the need for an effective but proportional fight against old and new forms of cybercrime, such as identity theft and the protection of intellectual property rights, while pointing out that legislation must not result in the systematic surveillance of all citizens, suspects and non-suspects, right and wrong, because this would, of course, be a blatant invasion of their privacy;
thirdly, as regards citizens’ right of access to the Internet, it calls on governments to ensure such access to the poorest citizens in the remotest regions;
fourthly, it emphasises that e-illiteracy will be the new illiteracy of the 21st century, just as not knowing how to read or write was in the 20th century and that access to the Internet is therefore a fundamental right which is equivalent to the right to access to schooling;
fifthly, it calls for measures to limit consent from users, a major issue which I shall now discuss."@en1
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