The European Commission launched Wednesday a bid to make companies including Internet giants such as Google or Facebook give people more control of their personal data or be fined up to one million euros. The proposal championed by EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding would force all companies to get explicit consent from customers to collect their data, explain how it will be used, and allow users to totally erase their information. Failure to comply could cost a company a fine of up to one million euros ($1.30 million), or two percent of annual turnover.
“Personal data is in today’s world the currency of the digital market, and like any currency it has to be stable and it has to be trustworthy,” Reding told a news conference after the EU executive endorsed her proposal. “Only if consumers trust that their data is well protected, will they continue to entrust businesses and authorities with it, buy online, accept new services,” she said. Citing a survey showing 72 percent of Europeans worry their data may be misused, Reding pressed her case to give people “the right to be forgotten” from the Internet by allowing them to make their data vanish from the web.
