New ePrivacy Directive consultation

The ePrivacy Directive (ePD), the piece of European legislation that informs the UK’s Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations - otherwise known by its abbreviation PECR, is under review by the EU Commission.

The EU Commission initiated another consultation because public consultations focus on qualitative elements, useful for informing civil servants, but lacking statistical analysis.

Deloitte’s review is focussed on quantitative information and will gather information:

• To evaluate the performance of the Directive for effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and EU added value
• To identify the costs and benefits associated with the ePD, such as compliance costs
• To assess the impact of potential amendments or revisions to the ePD or alternative policy measures, known as the Policy Options), including the potential for cost reduction as well as wider legal, economic and societal impact

The survey is targeted at businesses, including SMEs, providers of electronic networks, communication services, internet content, manufacturers of smart devices and advertising or marketing companies.

Please note that when answering online, the online survey contains filtering questions. This means that you will only receive questions relevant for your business, dependent on your answers to certain questions, such as the types of services offered by your business or its size.

Questions 1 to 10 focus on your organisation and its activities, including financial information such as turnover and balance sheet total.

Questions 11 to 17 focus on your relationship with the e-Privacy Directive. For Question 13, in order to respond to all the questions related to cookies, you must tick the box Confidentiality of communication. As a DMA member you are also likely to click the box unsolicited communications

Question 19 to 22 focus on the confidentiality provisions, including the consent requirement for cookies. For Question 19, regarding cookies, many Data Protection Authorities have produced guidance on how to collect consent for cookies.

Questions 23 to 29 focus on your relation with the national authority. These questions to understand whether companies understand which national authority is responsible for the ePD, and whether their guidance have been useful.

Question 21 to 23 relates to audits from your national authority you may have had to respond to, and the cost of responding. Please respond if you have had audits from your national authority.

Questions 30 to 43 focus on the cost of implementation of the ePD. In answering these questions you will be invited to share costs related to the implementation of the ePD (including legal costs and technical costs). In particular, any answers you are able to give for questions 33/34/37, if you answer yes to question 40, and respond to questions 42/43, will be extremely valuable to demonstrate how costly the cookies provision has been.

Questions 45 to 48 focus on proposal to review the ePD.

You can answer the survey here.

The DMA’s response to the EU Commission public consultation is available in this article.

The deadline for completion is 31 July 2016.