Massive, indiscriminate and systematic surveillance of Europeans is...

several actions to ensure that privacy rights are enforced. EU governments should ensure more transparency and control over the surveillance activities of their intelligence services, including a right for people to be informed and given adequate safeguards when their personal data are collected and transferred, WP29 said. To prevent such spying from happening again, there should be effective and independent oversight of security agencies, “which implies a genuine involvement of the data protection authorities,” it said. EU institutions must finalize negotiations on the data protection revamp package, and approve an enforceable international agreement that gives individuals strong guarantees in the context of surveillance activities, it said. Approval of the opinion coincided with the European Court of Justice decision Tuesday to overturn the data retention directive (CD April 9 p11), WP29 said. The organization plans to hold a conference on surveillance later this year to discuss how to better inform people of the consequences of using e-communications and how to protect themselves, it said. WP29 also responded to a Nov. 27 European Commission statement on the workings of the safe harbor agreement for data transfers to the U.S. Given current circumstances, it said, the agreement’s ability to adequately protect EU citizens is “questionable.” If the revision process now under way in the EC doesn’t “lead to a positive outcome, the Safe Harbor agreement should be suspended,” a WP29 news release said.