Public Policy Blog

On 26th March the director of Telefónica’s International Office, Carlos Lopez Blanco, spoke at an evening debate about data privacy. In discussion with Viviane Reding, European commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship, Sophie in ’t Veld, Dutch MEP vice-chairwoman of the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee, Peter Hustinx, the EU’s data protection supervisor and [...]

“Government should lead by example instead of dictating European models of regulation that could stall US-based growth and innovation in our thriving tech sector.” This quote, from Congressman Marsha Blackburn’s response to the recent release of the White House Privacy Report, is a good example of the concerns generated among some stakeholders in the US [...]

The European Data Protection Supervisor has recently published his Opinion on the EC proposals for review of the Data Protection legal framework, welcoming the proposed Regulation but saying that ‘we are still far from a comprehensive set of data protection rules on national and EU level in all areas of EU policy’. Telefónica also welcomes [...]

Many people consider that disclosure of personal data is increasingly a part of modern life. In Europe, 74% of Europeans see disclosing personal information as necessary to access online services, specifically social networking and sharing sites (61%) and online shopping (79%). However, 72% of internet users in Europe still worry that they are being asked [...]

As announced, on 25th January the European Commission adopted the long awaited proposals for review of the EU legal framework for Data Protection The review package is composed by a Communication, a Regulation (which repeals the Directive 1995/46/EC), a Directive (which repeals the Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA, for the former third pillar matters, that means [...]

At 12h30 today, Commissioner Reding, Vice-President of the EC in charge of Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, will announce the main lines of the data protection reform, in order to review the regulation currently in place adopted in 1995, when the digital sitaution was far from what we know today. You can follow it live here!

We have identified three priority areas that regulators and policymakers will need to pay particular attention to during these months ahead. To be effective, any policy must allow sufficient flexibility at a national level, as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach will be unlikely to succeed.

Many are the predictions those days in the Net concerning our sector and its perspectives for 2012, from how the telecom sector will evolve, to which services and technological trends will be the winners for next year, or how social networks will be positioned, what will be the IT “super themes” for 2012, etc…
This is a difficult and somersault exercise in a very dynamic and evolving sector such as the ICT & Telecom one. However, it is sure that some trends could be already detected.

Concerning the ICT public policy area, we could see the following issues as relevant as they are present in several international and public institutions agendas for 2012. Here are some of them:

On 14 December, Commissioner Kroes met a small group of industry representatives concerning Cloud Computing policy. As members of this initiative amongst others, Oracle, Google, SAP and EuroCloud presented her a set of 10 Recommendations on how to boost Cloud services in Europe.

The European Commission is trying to stimulate Cloud Computing in Europe. It is developing a “Cloud Strategy” as part of the Digital Agenda and recently launched a public consultation on the issue. Europe wants the European consumers and industry to benefit from cloud computing. It has the potential of dramatically changing the way company’s provision [...]