ePri­va­cy Regu­la­ti­on: Coun­cil posi­ti­on; pro­po­sed cla­ri­fi­ca­ti­ons of inter­na­tio­nal scope.

The Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Uni­on is in the pro­cess of defi­ning its posi­ti­on on the ePri­va­cy Regu­la­ti­on (cur­rent draft as PDF, Decem­ber 5, 2017; the amend­ments refer to the Commission’s draft of Janu­ary 10, 2017). The Par­lia­ment had alre­a­dy given its opi­ni­on on this on Octo­ber 26, 2017 (the pro­po­sals of the Com­mis­si­on and the Par­lia­ment are com­pared here).

Art. 3 of the Regu­la­ti­on will ther­eby inter­na­tio­nal appli­ca­bi­li­ty regu­la­te the ePri­va­cy Regu­la­ti­on. In the ver­si­ons of the Com­mis­si­on and the Par­lia­ment, it was not clear how far the appli­ca­ti­on to com­pa­nies wit­hout an estab­lish­ment in the EU goes. The Coun­cil now wants to cla­ri­fy this: Cover­ed would be the tran­sac­tions sub­ject to the regu­la­ti­on, inclu­ding the trans­mis­si­on of elec­tro­nic adver­ti­sing, if they are aimed at end users who are in the EU stop The appli­ca­bi­li­ty here leans on the appli­ca­ti­on of the GDPR on beha­vi­oral observation.

Also like after the GDPR is a Repre­sen­ta­ti­ve to be appoin­tedif a non-Euro­pean com­pa­ny is cover­ed by the ePri­va­cy Regu­la­ti­on, wher­eby Reci­tal 9a in the ver­si­on pro­po­sed by the Par­lia­ment cla­ri­fi­es that this repre­sen­ta­ti­ve is at the same time the repre­sen­ta­ti­ve within the mea­ning of Art. 27 GDPR can be.

Art. 3 of the ePri­va­cy Regu­la­ti­on (“Ter­ri­to­ri­al scope and repre­sen­ta­ti­ve”) as amen­ded by the Coun­cil reads as fol­lows (empha­sis added):

1. this regu­la­ti­on applies to:

(a) the pro­vi­si­on of elec­tro­nic com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons ser­vices to end-users who are in the Uni­on,

(aa) the pro­ce­s­sing of elec­tro­nic com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons con­tent in trans­mis­si­on and of elec­tro­nic com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons meta­da­ta of end-users who are in the Uni­on;

(c ) the pro­tec­tion of infor­ma­ti­on pro­ce­s­sed by or emit­ted by or stored in the ter­mi­nal equip­ment of end-users who are in the Uni­on.

(ca) the pla­cing on the Uni­on mar­ket of soft­ware per­mit­ting elec­tro­nic com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, inclu­ding the retrie­val and pre­sen­ta­ti­on of infor­ma­ti­on on the internet;

(cb) the offe­ring of publicly available direc­to­ries of end-users of elec­tro­nic com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons ser­vices who are in the Uni­on;

(cc) the sen­ding or pre­sen­ting of direct mar­ke­ting com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons to end-users who are in the Uni­on.

2. whe­re […] is not estab­lished in the Uni­on it shall desi­gna­te in wri­ting a repre­sen­ta­ti­ve in the Union.

2a. The requi­re­ments laid down in para­graph 2 shall not app­ly if acti­vi­ties listed in para­graph 1 are occa­sio­nal and are unli­kely to result in a risk to the fun­da­men­tal rights of end-users taking into account the natu­re, con­text, scope and pur­po­se of tho­se activities.

3. the repre­sen­ta­ti­ve shall be estab­lished in one of the Mem­ber Sta­tes whe­re the end-users of such elec­tro­nic com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons ser­vices are located.

[…]

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