The EU Commission’s desire to create a Digital Single Market is a bold move, which could boost the economy by 415bn Euros a year. But at what cost to us?
An open market, yes. Trading our privacy for the privilege, no.
The new pan-European initiative broadly moves to promote choice for consumers and businesses, ensuring that they can select goods and services from providers across the EU, promote growth through a common VAT threshold, standardise pricing across countries and establish cross-border legislation for service quality – ensuring their online freedom to profit fully from Europe’s huge internal market.
Another key initiative from the Commission is the launching of an antitrust competition enquiry into the e-commerce sector in the EU, as well as a comprehensive analysis of the role of online search engines, social media and app stores etc. A hat tip to the recent investigation into Google, accused of monopolizing its major market share to promote its particular services ahead of competitors.
When it comes to data the Commission aims to ‘reinforce trust and security in digital services, notably concerning the handling of personal data’ presumably in reference to the new EU data protection rules due to be adopted by the end of 2015. And herein lies the issue. We agree with the commission that yes, an open market and more choice of goods and services is great for consumers and businesses alike. However, we should never have to trade our privacy for that privilege.
The EU Commission needs to say more about how exactly it plans to reinforce trust and security in digital services. The idea of free movement of data in the European Union will not enable consumers to take greater control over who has access to their data. Rather it simply facilitates the trading and selling of our personal data between companies in the name of ‘encouraging innovation’. More needs to be done to protect the privacy rights of European citizens and restore trust in digital service providers across Europe.