Brussels (AFP)
The European Commission said Tuesday it wants to overcome the divisions of EU countries over one of its proposals to better regulate, in terms of privacy, Internet messaging services such as WhatsApp.
For nearly three years, the 28 EU Member States have been unable to agree on an update of the rules on the protection of privacy and a strengthening of the confidentiality of online communications, such as Viber, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
"I noticed that there were more differences (between the Member States of the Union, ed) than I thought," said the new European Commissioner for Internal Market and Digital, the French Thierry Breton, after a meeting in Brussels.
To unblock the situation and while some European states expressed their "frustration" and "impatience" after three years of fruitless discussions, Mr. Breton said he was considering all the options.
"Among the options on the table, there is that of making a new proposal" to replace the regulation in question, dubbed "e-privacy", said Mr. Breton.
"I'm going to see each other, it's going to be my mission in the coming months to understand," he added.
Under the current EU rules dating back to 2002, strict privacy protection is only applied to text messages and voice calls provided by traditional telecom operators, thus sparing giants Facebook, Google or Skype ( held by Microsoft) close monitoring.
The EU's 28 have been struggling for three years on different issues, such as how to handle pornography and pedophile abuse online, as well as controls on "cookies" (small computer files) used by advertisers to track users from one web page to another.
On the other hand, the European Parliament, the other co-legislator of the EU, has already adopted its position on the Commission's proposal.
© 2019 AFP