The government provides a new e-law. We presented a proposal for consultation to be presented in the Storting the 28 of May and we think that the proposal should not be activated.
– For us, there are a lot of doubts in the proposal application like what does this mean for many people. It is not so clear who is interested and the consequence for different groups in our society. Practically, the proposal means that all the communication channels we use during the day can be subjected to control – said Bjørn Erik Thon the director of the Norwegian Data Protection Authority.
The proposal represents a privacy right breach.
The new e-law proposal will substitute the 1998 law. The data protection authority answered on the consultation the 6 of February 2019. Like many other advisory bodies, we believe that our proposal was barely studied.
Our main conclusion was that the collection of information and the control of the communication between Norwegians are so extensive that the proposal can not be activated.
For us, the consequences for the single citizen and the fundamental rights like freedom of speech, communication and privacy were not studied properly.
The law provides the jurisdictional and continued control under the EOS Board.
– We think that the law draft is still a privacy right breach, that will jeopardize the whole democratic foundation – said Thon. – The new e-law will be practically used to cover the most secret of intelligence. The control mechanisms are important and it is necessary that any other regulatory framework is impossible to control.
The consequences have to be studied better.
The search for information will affect a large number of Norwegian citizens and there is considerable uncertainty as to how much of internal communication will be filtered. The law draft also contains no assessment of the privacy consequences and the lack of clarity and legal certainty ensures that the proposal should have been sent for another hearing.
– The consequences for citizens are little studied. This is of great importance, not least for the sake of trust in those who will practice the regulations, points out Bjorn Erik Thon.
The Data Authority does not control the intelligence service, it is the EOS committee that controls it. Let’s look at the bill as our ombudsman role. One of the tasks of the Danish Data Protection Agency is to identify privacy hazards in the community and to advise on how to avoid or mitigate hazards.